DUBAI // A Quran teacher has been jailed for six months for molesting an eight-year-old girl.
Afghan M K, 30, was found guilty by Dubai Criminal Court on Tuesday of taking advantage of being alone with the British girl by inappropriately touching her on November 26 last year.
Last month he had denied the charge of a forceful sex assault and said the whole issue was a misunderstanding by the girl's parents.
“I didn’t do it – they got it wrong,” he said at the time.
But he was found guilty after the girl’s grandmother testified that she had been present when the incident happened.
“He finished teaching my grandson Quran and came to start the lesson with my granddaughter,” 64-year-old Afghani A A said.
“It was the time for Isha prayer so I asked him about the direction of the Qibla because I often forget. He told me and I walked away from them to start praying.”
A A added that she again forgot where the Qibla was and turned back to ask the teacher, and that was when she saw him touching the girl.
“He was trying to draw himself closer to her to kiss her,” said A A, who screamed at the teacher before he ran away.
The girl’s family reported M K at the Ports police station, in Al Mina.
An Emirati policeman, S A, 32, said that the teacher was arrested at Dubai International Airport while trying to flee the country.
“He told me the girl was not focusing and trying to walk away from him, so he grabbed her, accidentally, from behind and when she tried to cut loose from his grip, he caught her from the leg, and it was then when her grandmother saw him and thought he was molesting the girl,” S A said.
The girl, however, gave a different testimony, stating that he often took advantage of her brother not being present and touched her inappropriately while teaching her at the family home on The Palm Jumeirah.
She said she did not tell her parents because she was scared.
He will be deported after completing his jail term.
salamir@thenational.ae
