DUBAI // A driver from Tajikistan has been found not guilty of molesting a woman after she refused his sexual advances but he was convicted of physically assaulting her.
Dubai Criminal Court sentenced the 36-year-old to a year in jail for physical assault and drinking alcohol without a licence.
In March last year, the Kazakh woman, 39, was visiting Dubai and arranged for the driver to pick her up and drive her to the Gloria Hotel, on Sheikh Zayed Road.
The driver accompanied her to her friend’s hotel room, where they all spent the time talking. “He started drinking heavily,” the woman said.
They left the room at about 5am and headed to the hotel lift, where the driver started expressing his feelings towards her.
“He tried to kiss me a few times,” the woman said, and then hit her when she kept rejecting his advances.
When they got into the lift he again he tried to kiss her, she added, so she pushed him and told him she was not letting him drive her anywhere.
Meanwhile, a 26-year-old hotel staff member who was delivering newspapers to guests, heard the woman’s screams on the 32nd floor.
He testified seeing a man banging a woman’s head and kicking her all over her body inside the lift when its doors opened.
“I rushed to help her and asked him to leave her alone but he wouldn’t listen to me and ordered me to go away,” the hotel worker said.
Police were called and the driver was arrested, while the woman was taken to Rashid Hospital.
He was charged with sexual and physical assault and drinking alcohol without a licence. In court in May, he confessed to drinking but denied the two counts of assault.
He will be deported after serving his jail term.
salamir@thenational.ae