Dubai: A clerk has been sentenced to three months in jail for kissing a 13-year-old girl inside a building’s elevator although he claimed he gave her a fatherly kiss.
The 31-year-old Pakistani clerk, M.M., grabbed the British girl’s face in his hands and then kissed her against her will in October.
The Dubai Court of First Instance convicted the defendant of molesting the girl despite his having entered a not guilty plea.
When asked why he kissed the victim in the lift, the defendant contended: “I kissed her in a fatherly manner. When she entered the lift, she looked scared. I considered her like my daughter and kissed her like a father does to his daughter. I did not have any bad intention.”
Presiding judge Ezzat Abdul Lat said the accused will be deported after serving his jail term.
The girl’s British mother said she was at the gym when her daughter told her what happened.
“My child came to me and said a stranger kissed her in the elevator of the building where we live. She seemed hysterical and frightened. We did not find the man when we went searching for him,” she testified.
A police officer said primary interrogations revealed that the clerk had been involved in the incident.
“We identified M.M. from his car’s number plate. The defendant was arrested in his house in Sharjah. During questioning, he claimed that he kissed the girl just like a father because she was scared when she entered the elevator. The girl identified him at the police line up,” the officer testified.
Meanwhile, the girl told prosecutors that the defendant kissed her when she took the lift up to their home on the sixth floor. The girl alleged that she ran out of the elevator once it stopped at the third floor.
Thursday’s ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.
