Dubai: A man ended up with a one-year jail term thanks to his lawyers who exposed during a retrial the lies of a woman who claimed he kidnapped and raped her.

The 24-year-old Emirati man, M.A., was earlier sentenced in absentia to 15 years in jail for kidnapping his 29-year-old countrywoman and raping her at knifepoint at a hotel in Al Ain in December 2011.

During a retrial, the Dubai Court of First Instance on Monday quashed M.A.’s 15-year sentence and replaced it with a year in jail. The rape charge was dropped and replaced with consensual sex.

The court cleared M.A. of kidnap after his lawyers, Eisa Bin Haider and Abdullah Al Nasser, argued the claimant fabricated in her statement that she was kidnapped while going to school to sit an exam.

The lawyers contended the woman had a date with their client and they had consensual sex.

Presiding judge, Ali Attiyah Sa’ad, acquitted M.A. of kidnap after Bin Haider and Al Nasser produced a school certificate confirming that the woman had been expelled a year before the date of the incident.

Al Nasser said: “She lied about the kidnap. Her statement was unreasonable and baseless. The woman is a liar who fabricated these allegations against M.A.”

“She willingly went to meet up with our client on a date,” said Bin Haider. “They had consensual sex and not a rape.”

The woman alleged that M.A. stopped her from doing her exams then he drove to Al Ain, where he raped her in a hotel room that was booked by his friends.

Records said the incident happened nearly six months after the woman’s parents rejected M.A.’s marriage proposal and made her marry someone else.

Bin Haider told Gulf News on Monday: “We will appeal the primary judgement before the Appeal Court. We will ask the appellate court to refer the case to prosecutors for further investigation pertaining [to] the consensual sex crime and have the woman listed as a suspect.”

The defendant pleaded not guilty during the retrial, saying they had consensual sex. He said she willingly went with him to the hotel.

The woman alleged that the incident happened one afternoon before her night school, where she was supposed to sit an exam.

Monday’s judgement remains subject to appeal within 15 days.