Dubai football coach abused boys he trained, court hears

Prosecutors said the 35-year-old Indian took naked pictures of his victim, 15, then threatened him to post the pictures on Facebook if he did not comply with the coach’s wishes.

DUBAI // A football coach sexually abused a 15-year-old boy he trained, Dubai Criminal Court heard on Wednesday.

Prosecutors said the 35-year-old Indian took naked pictures of his victim then threatened him to post the pictures on Facebook if he did not comply with the coach’s wishes.

The defendant denied five charges of sexual assault, issuing threats, inciting sin among teenagers, and possessing child pornography.

The coach also sent other children pornographic images to incite them to commit sin, the court heard.

He stored the naked pictures of several children with the intent to use them to blackmail his victims.

“No nothing like that happened,” the coach said in court. “I took no pictures and I didn’t threaten or blackmail anyone. The phone that has the pictures on it doesn’t belong to me. It’s for a friend who flew to his homeland and left it with me.”

The coach first befriended the 15-year-old Indian boy on Facebook about four months before the alleged assault in October.

“He started training me and my friends and used to drive from and to home but on October 15, after he dropped everyone else, he took me to a sandy plot behind a school then locked the doors and forced me to take my clothes off,” the boy said in records.

He said the defendant threatened him with the pictures then abused him before warning him against telling anyone or else he would post the nude images on Facebook.

The boy told his parents, who reported the incident to police.

The policeman who arrested the coach said: “We apprehended him and he confessed to me that he had in fact assaulted the boy sexually then said that he did it to several other children, as he was driving children home after training and abused the last one left in the car.”

The 48-year-old Emirati officer said numerous nude images of children were found in the coach’s smartphone.

Prosecutors and police said the man confessed to all charges during investigations.

The next hearing will be on May 16.