ABU DHABI // A woman who accused a man of rape after waking up naked with him in a hotel bed has been charged with alcohol-related offences.
RJ, a Briton, reported she had been raped after waking next to AS, whom she met at a nightclub, the Abu Dhabi Criminal Court of First Instance heard yesterday.
AS, an Emirati, has been charged with rape while RJ faces charges of drinking alcohol and providing it to others without a licence.
AS, an Emirati, told the court he met RJ at a nightclub where she kissed him and invited him to sleep with her.
He said they went to a hotel room where she stripped and initiated sex, but he decided he was not attracted to her and had a shower instead. AS said she then fell asleep.
"When she woke up she started crying because she thought we had sex," AS told the court.
Chief Justice Sayed Abdul Baseer asked RJ if she had willingly gone up to the room and kissed AS.
RJ replied that she could not remember anything from the night before because she had been drunk.
She said that after she woke AS held her on the bed and stopped her leaving.
"He shouted at me saying he did not do anything wrong," she said. "His friends were also arguing out loud with him in Arabic."
The court heard his friends had overheard the two the night before and went to the room in the morning.
The judge asked RJ whether there had been any sex.
"In the morning when I woke up of course not, but at night I don't remember," she said.
"I was unconscious. But I know what I felt."
A verdict is due to be announced tomorrow.
hdajani@thenational.ae
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While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
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