Worker accused of trying to blackmail woman online

Defendant ‘got the victim’s number by posing as woman’

DUBAI // A worker pretended to be a school friend of a woman on social media, then threatened to defame her if she did not have sex with him, a court has heard.

Dubai Criminal Court heard the man had earlier pretended to be a woman to get her phone number from her brother.

The Pakistani, 20, and two compatriots, aged 20 and 33, were not in court to enter pleas on charges of issuing threats and abusing telecommunications.

The woman, a 22-year-old Pakistani university student, told prosecutors that in May last year she received a message on WhatsApp from an old school friend who told her that he was sending her a message from his new number.

Shortly afterwards, she figured out that the man was not her friend. “I called that friend of mine on his number and he denied getting a new number at all,” said the woman.

She said she stopped replying to the messages, after which he sent her threatening messages saying he would defame her if she did not have a relationship with him and his two friends.

“He threatened to tell my family that I had a very dirty past,” said the woman, adding that she received more than 100 messages and 20 calls a day from him.

She said that on August 14 last year he threatened to burn down her house if she did not do what he wanted, at which point she went to Al Riffa police station and reported him. Two men were apprehended but one remains at large. The next hearing has been scheduled for January 29.