DUBAI // A company general manager threatened to post online a video of his friend’s former wife naked if she did not agree to marry him, Dubai Criminal Court heard.
Egyptian F S, 34, told prosecutors that, after getting divorced, she started a business with the defendant, 39-year-old fellow-Egyptian H A.
“He provided me with clothes and shoes to sell in Egypt. Then we became friends and agreed to get married, but when he told me it was a civil marriage, not an official one, I refused,” she said.
He had offered an urfi marriage, which is an informal arrangement well known in Egypt where a couple can write that they are married on a piece of paper and call it a marriage contract. If they want a divorce, they simply tear up the piece of paper.
After she refused, he threatened to kidnap her children and kill them, she said. “He told me that he managed to get hold of some clips showing me naked, and said that my ex-husband sent them to him after we split up,” F S said.
During questioning, the man, who denied issuing threats, said he did threaten her with the clips but only because she owed him money from the business they started and, when he asked for his money, she stalled and never paid it back. The next hearing is on December 6.
salamir@thenational.ae
