Dubai: A woman has claimed that her friend was kidnapped and gang-raped by more than three men after her drink was spiked while she was at a nightclub in Dubai.
“My 28-year-old British friend woke me up and cried when she revealed to me that she was locked up in a flat… maybe four or five men gang-raped her after someone spiked her drink when she was at the nightclub,” said a French woman when she testified before the Dubai Court of First Instance.
Two Iranian defendants, Y.J. and A.K., both aged 20, have denied tricking the 28-year-old British woman and taking her to a flat in Deira where they stripped her naked and raped her one at a time more than five times.
A third unidentified suspect, who remains at large, has also been accused of a role in the crime.
Giving a 90-minute testimony before presiding judge Maher Salama Al Mahdi, the French woman testified: “When she woke me up in the morning, she alleged to me that she was unaware of what was happening at first. Her memory was blacking out for short periods. She could remember bits and pieces of what happened and that she suffered severe pain in her rectum. She also claimed to me that while someone raped her, another person filmed the abuse.”
When asked by judge Al Mahdi whether the victim was drunk or drugged at the time of the incident, the witness replied that her friend had never gotdrunk.
“She claimed that somebody drugged her by spiking her drink. She has never got drunk since she started drinking. She claimed that she believed that her rapists were Indians,” the witness told the court.
Meanwhile the court heard the Briton woman’s statement behind closed doors in a previous hearing.
The British woman was very drunk, according to prosecution records, and completely blacked out when the defendants reportedly picked her up from a cab and took her to a flat where they raped her.
“We did not kidnap her or have sex with her against her will,” claimed A.K.
Y.J. was spotted nodding his head in denial when he entered his plea.
Prosecutors said the suspects abused the drunken state of their victim when they spotted her in the taxi. They were said to have told the cab driver that they knew the girl and that they would take her back to her place.
The defendants paid the taxi fare and drove the girl to their flat where they raped her one at a time. They were additionally charged with confining her inside the flat while they raped her.
The girl testified that the incident happened after she went to a pub and consumed three glasses of wine.
“I stopped realising what was happening around me. I only regained my consciousness around 6.30am the next morning. I felt severe pain in my private parts because one of the suspects had bizarre sex with me. I tried to stop them. One of them was also filming while the others raped me. I went to a friend of mine who took me to the police,” claimed the victim.
The Pakistani driver confirmed that the girl was very drunk and slept in the back seat of his taxi. He alleged that when she did not pay him, three men parked in front of him, paid him Dh100 and claimed that they would drop her home because she was their friend.
The court will hear prosecution witnesses when it reconvenes next month.
