DUBAI // A policeman has been sentenced to two years in jail for kidnapping and sexually assaulting a saleswoman after offering her a lift home.
Uniformed Emirati M N, 20, showed his police ID and took the Filipina’s phone and ID before telling her to get into his car on May 11 last year.
He denied the charges at Dubai Criminal Court last September, telling the court: “She stopped me and asked that I give her a lift and that’s what I did. I didn’t touch her or do anything to her.”
The 41-year-old saleswoman said that at about midnight she was going to spend the night at a friend’s house. She was waiting for her friend to pick her up near the market in Al Warqa 2 when the officer pulled up.
“A car stopped near me and its driver lowered his window then showed me a police ID but he was covering the name,” she said.
“He then asked me about my destination and asked for my ID and to check my phone.
“I gave it to him because he was a policeman.”
She added that he kept her ID and phone before asking her to get into the car so he can take her to her destination.
“I wasn’t scared because he was in a uniform,” she said.
Five minutes after she got into the car, the driver took her to a sandy area near a villa under construction.
He called her friend and took down directions to her place but when he told her he wanted something from her first, before he dropped her at her friend’s house, the woman became frightened.
“I told him I didn’t have money, if that’s what he wanted, but he said it’s not money but sex he wanted,” she said. “I told him I was an old woman with kids and he said if I didn’t give him what he wanted, he wouldn’t take me to my friend’s house.”
The Filipina alleges he then jumped on top of her and, despite her begging him to let her go, he sexually assaulted her.
The defendant then drove her to her friend’s house after the ordeal.
“I stood crying near a bus stop when a policeman in a police car saw me and the officers asked me about my problem,” she said. “I told them and they requested an ambulance for me.”
The defendant was arrested the following morning.
salamir@thenational.ae
