A 70-year-old woman accused of selling another woman to an undercover policeman for Dh80,000 claimed she thought the payment was for a wedding dowry.
N, a Palestinian appeared at Abu Dhabi Criminal Court on charges of prostituting A, an Iraqi.
The court heard that a police officer had posed as a customer and secretly filmed negotiations with them.
Although the policeman said he had paid Dh80,000 to N, she claimed she gave all the money to A because the man said he wanted to marry her and that was her dowry.
“You did not take half of the money, like you mentioned in police records?” asked Chief Justice Sayed Abdul Baseer.
N insisted she gave all the money to A, but that the suitor told her she will be receiving a reward for setting up the wedding.
“I have been living in the country for 56 years, why would I do such an act now?” she asked.
She said that A was divorced from an Emirati man. N had convinced her that the suitor was affluent, unlike her former husband who was always arguing with her about money.
The court watched the video of the two women having a long discussion with the undercover police agent.
The judge ordered prosecutors to improve the quality of the video after defence attorney Tarek Al Serkal said some of the audio was not clear. There was confusion as to whether the defendant had said “zena”, which means adultery in Arabic, or “sana”, which means year.
The case was adjourned until next week.
hdajani@thenational.ae
