Dubai: A couple have been accused of luring a merchant to a hotel for massage with a white blonde woman, filmed him nude, assaulted and robbed him.
According to the case, the 67-year-old Iranian merchant saw an online advertisement offering massage by a white blonde masseuse in Deira close to his residence in November.
The merchant called up the advertised number and agreed with a purportedly blonde woman, according to records, who asked him to come have a massage at her hotel room in Al Muraqqabat Street.
Once he reached the hotel room, the merchant was kept waiting for four minutes at the door after he knocked.
When someone opened the door, the room was dark from inside and a feminine voice invited him to enter the room, said records.
Unaware of what the woman who invited him in looked like, the merchant stepped in and remained standing at the door when he realised that she was an African woman.
When he tried to turn back and leave, two African men came out from an adjacent room and pulled him inside.
The Nigerian woman and more than three of her countrymen ganged up against the Iranian, beat him up, pulled him into the washroom, stripped him naked, took away his phones, filmed him naked, and stole his money and two bank cards.
Then they tied him with his own clothes, kept him confined in the hotel room and absconded, according to records.
Police checked the surveillance cameras fixed above the ATM machine that the culprits had used to withdraw cash from the merchant’s account.
Police identified a 26-year-old Nigerian man and a 32-year-old Nigerian woman.
Police arrested the man and they are still searching for the woman.
Prosecutors charged the 26-year-old suspect and the 32-year-old runaway of stealing the merchant’s Dh40,000 in cash and bank cards and stealing his mobile phones and wristwatch. They were also charged with molesting the Iranian and breaching his modesty by stripping him naked and filming him on his mobile phone.
Prosecutors accused the suspects of threatening to dishonour the merchant by posting his nude images on the internet if he didn’t provide them with the correct passcodes of his bank cards.
According to the accusation sheet, two or more suspects collaborated with the Nigerian couple.
The runaway woman is being tried in absentia.
The suspect in custody pleaded not guilty when he showed up before the Dubai Court of First Instance on Thursday.
“I did not do anything … my friends [other suspects] did that,” he argued before presiding judge Urfan Omar.
The merchant told prosecutors that he was lured to the hotel room for a massage with a white blonde woman.
“Once I saw an African woman standing behind the door and not the white blonde woman whom I had seen in the online advertisement, I told her that I wanted to leave. She locked the door instantly and two men came out from another room … they all ganged up against me. I was beaten and assaulted. Then I was taken into the washroom where I was undressed, beaten, insulted, tied up, filmed naked and robbed … I tried to stall them when they took my bank cards and gave them wrong passcodes. The two, who had taken the cards and left the room to withdraw money from my account, called up those who remained with me in the room. I was beaten again and threatened that my nude images would be posted online before I was coerced to give them the right passcodes,” he testified to prosecutors.
The court will appoint a lawyer to defend the suspect when it reconvenes on March 29.
