3 accused of locking up 5 visitors in flat

Trio threatened and assaulted female job seekers for a month until one escaped

Legal and Court Correspondent

Two businessmen and a woman have been accused of locking up five female visitors, who were brought to work as housemaids, in a flat for up to one month.

An agency that hires domestic helpers was said to have flown in five Filipinas on visit visas to employ them as housemaids in Dubai in August.

On August 19, Dubai Police were informed that a woman fell from a building and fractured her hips while trying to escape using a rope of blankets. Investigations revealed that the Filipina had been locked up for four weeks in a flat.

Investigators discovered the flat belonged to an agency that recruits domestic helpers and that around five women had been confined in the flat for around a month.

Police apprehended the agency’s owner, an Egyptian businessman, his Jordanian partner and a Filipina woman who worked for them. Prosecutors accused the three suspects of illegally confining the five Filipinas in a flat under threat, assault and coercion.

Prosecutors said the three suspects threatened and beat the five women and kept them confined after they had been rejected by their employers.

The Filipina suspect pleaded not guilty and refuted the charges before the Dubai Court of First Instance yesterday. The two male suspects also pleaded not guilty and contended before presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi that they were outside the country at the time when the alleged incident happened.

The five Filipinas’ lawyer lodged a civil lawsuit in which his clients are seeking Dh21,000 in temporary compensation each.

Presiding judge Al Shamsi said the court will reconvene when the suspects hire lawyers to defend them on November 18.