DUBAI // A Filipina who married in secret in her hometown of Manila has filed a police report saying that her Syrian husband, who is also her boss, raped her.
The man denied the claim.
Without mentioning that he was her husband at the time A O, 27, reported A A, 49, at the Bur Dubai police station.
When police took her to the scene to investigate she then changed her story. She said that she was only sexually assaulted by him and had said she was raped because she was scared. “He was trying to molest me so I said he raped me,” she told police officers in July 2013.
“He asked me to follow him to his flat to clean it and then started touching me.
“He said he would rape me or send me to prison, so I told him it’s better for me to go to prison than be raped.”
The pair met while she was working at the Syrian’s company.
It was only when officers spoke to A A that they learned that the couple had married in April 2013.
The man said that they had agreed to keep the marriage secret because he did not want his first wife to find out.
But he said she then “changed her mind and wanted me to announce the marriage and, when I refused, accused me of raping her”.
As a marriage certificate was not produced, the couple was referred to prosecutors and then to the Dubai Court of Misdemeanours to face charges of having consensual sex outside wedlock.
The man denied the charge in court on Thursday. He presented a marriage certificate that he had obtained from the Philippines consulate, which supported his story. His wife was then charged with filing a false report to police, to which she confessed.
“She was jealous and thought that she could blackmail him into announcing the marriage if she accused him of rape,” said the man’s lawyer, Eisa bin Haider.
“When she was interrogated by prosecutors, she told the truth and confessed that they were married, so I asked the court to pronounce my client not guilty.”
A verdict is due on January 15.
salamir@thenational.ae
