Vet cleared of assault, gets jail for resisting cops

DUBAI — A man, accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a lift and forcing her to give him her mobile number, was cleared of the charge by the Dubai Court of First Instance recently.

However, the 27-year-old Egyptian man, working as a veterinarian, received a three-month jail sentence and deportation order for resisting police officers.

According to the woman’s testimony, a friend who accompanied the accused did not mind his behaviour towards her and rather watched smiling and laughing, and then left the lift.

The accused denied charges of sexual assault, breaching a woman’s modesty in public and resisting police officers at the court.

The 21-year-old complainant, an Iranian, said the defendant talked to her inappropriately, groped her and forced her to give him her number. A police corporal said the accused assaulted and pushed him at the police station. “He would not hand over his phone SIM card but rather put it and other small memory cards in his mouth and destroyed them.”

Another policeman said the woman lodged a complaint on October 28, 2017. “She said she had just walked out of a flat where she dropped some papers to an acquaintance in a building in Al Muraqqabat and taken the lift when two Egyptian men entered with her.”

The policeman added: “She complained that one of them slapped her after she refused to give him her mobile number. He then touched her body inappropriately. He also clicked her photo and asked her how much she was paid and how much she would charge him. He made her call his number so to save hers. The defendant had to leave at the sixth floor after a cleaner walked in.”

The defendant denied the woman’s accusations and also fiercely resisted and pushed the CID officers who tried to stop him from destroying the cards.