Dubai: A salesman has been accused of getting drunk, molesting and brutally assaulting a woman visitor in a lift shortly after they visited her friends at a hotel.
The 36-year-old Tajik salesman, Z.R., was said to have been driving the 39-year-old Kazakh woman around Dubai for a while before the incident happened in March.
On that day the Kazakh woman called him up and asked him to drive her to the hotel to meet her friends, records said.
Z.R. was said to have accompanied the woman to the friends’ place where he drank alcohol and, when they left, he tried to kiss her in the lift, molested her and beat her.
Prosecutors charged the suspect with attempted molestation, assault and consuming alcohol.
The suspect pleaded not guilty and refuted the accusation of trying to molest the woman when he appeared before the Dubai Court of First Instance on Thursday.
According to the charge sheet, prosecutors said the suspect abused the fact that he was alone with the Kazakh woman in the lift where he tried to kiss her and hug her. Z.R. assaulted the woman and beat her brutally when she foiled his bid to kiss her, said records.
“I did not try to molest her … but yes I assaulted her. I also drank liquor,” the suspect told presiding judge Ali Abdul Wahhab.
The 39-year-old claimed to prosecutors that her friend provided her with the number of the suspect, who used to drive her around the city.
“He drove me around the city for nearly four days. On that day, I asked him to take me to see my friends at a hotel at Shaikh Zayed Road. He also accompanied me to their room where we stayed for some time … we chatted and drank alcohol. He also drank too much. We left around 5am. While we walked to the lift, he told me ‘You are beautiful, I want you and I want to date you’. I ignored his remarks. I prevented him from touching me or kissing me … then when we entered the lift, I told him that I would leave alone. I repeatedly kept him away and prevented him from kissing me … then he turned violent and assaulted me,” she testified to prosecutors.
A Bangladeshi hotel staff claimed to prosecutors that he spotted the suspect beating the woman once the elevator door opened.
“I walked up to him and asked him to stop beating the woman or else she would die … he asked me to leave,” he testified to prosecutors.
The Kazakh woman’s lawyer asked presiding judge Abdul Wahhab to adjourn the case until he presents a civil compensation claim against the suspect. The trial continues.
