DUBAI // An executive manager who claimed that a woman was only accusing him of rape in order to blackmail him has been jailed for 10 years.
At Dubai Criminal Court in January, Egyptian A A, 28, denied raping the Belarusian at her apartment, saying she was setting him up and that she was trying to rape him.
His lawyer, Saeed Al Ghilani, accused the woman, who was seen running naked into a lift in her building before police were called, of being a gold-digger who hoped to get money from his client in return for her dropping the charges.
“He did not rape her, she locked him up in her apartment and he was the one who called the police to be freed,” the lawyer told the court.
However, the court ruled that the executive manager had raped the woman on July 17 last year after visiting her apartment claiming that he wanted to discuss business.
In her testimony taken before she left the UAE, the Belarusian said she met the executive online while she was abroad and the two talked about business. She gave him her Dubai mobile number and agreed to meet him on her return.
“He called me on the morning of the incident and I suggested we meet in a cafe in the Marina area. But he said his work was close to my apartment and it would be easier for him to meet me there,” said the woman.
She said the receptionist at her building called her at 4.30pm and said a man was there to see her. “I told him to let the man up to my flat,” she said.
The woman said a friend was with her in the flat but the friend left when the executive manager went to the toilet. On his return, she said he sat next to her and started touching her.
“I stopped him but he continued, so I ran to the bedroom to call police but he followed me, grabbed me by my hair and raped me for almost half an hour,” she said.
The woman managed to escape naked to the lift. “When the lift opened, there were two Asian men who did not even move to help me,” she said, adding that the rapist chased her in to the lift.
“I managed to take the lift to the ground floor, where a woman saw me as the door opened up and covered me then called police,” said the Belarusian.
The Indian woman, S S, who helped her said: “I took the lift in my building and was surprised to see a naked woman and a man yelling at her. She was scared and crying as he was screaming at her.”
S S covered the Belarusian and took her to her own flat in the same building before calling police.
The Egyptian will be deported after completing his jail term. The verdict remains subject to appeal within 15 days.
salamir@thenational.ae
