Dubai: A legal consultant, currently serving life imprisonment for raping a hairdresser, stunned the Dubai Appeal Court on Sunday as he entered a guilty plea.

In December, the Dubai Court of First Instance convicted him of raping the woman at knifepoint in the building’s stairway although he had pleaded not guilty. The Egyptian legal consultant parked his motorbike upon spotting the Moroccan hairdresser walking into a building in Al Nahda. He entered the elevator after her and pressed the button for the parking level in March.

However, when he appeared before the appellate court’s presiding judge Eisa Al Sharif on Sunday, he pleaded guilty.

“Did you rape her and claim to be a policeman?” presiding judge Al Sharif asked the convict.

“Yes, I did,” replied the defendant.

When the judge asked him for a second time in court, the appellant replied: “Yes, Sir. I raped her and I claimed to be a policeman.”

Records said the accused forced the Moroccan to have sex with him and impersonated a police officer.

According to the primary ruling, the defendant also faces a deportation order.

The accused had abused the fact that he was alone with the woman, according to records, in the lift when he ordered her to accompany him to the stairway. He posed as a policeman when he showed her a walkie-talkie that reportedly had a Dubai Police badge on it.

The woman said she had just left a coffee shop and was going home when the defendant attacked her at 4.30am.

“I saw the accused had parked his motorbike in front of the building where I lived. We entered the lift together. I told him that I am from Morocco when he asked where I come from. Suddenly, he pointed a knife at my neck … I immediately handed him my wallet and mobile as I thought he was a thief. He forced me to the stairway room … he forced me to perform an indecent act before he raped me. He showed me an ID and claimed to be a policeman. My friend advised me to report [the incident] to the police immediately,” she said.

Records showed the woman identified the defendant in the police line-up once she was summoned to the police station.

A police corporal said the accused was identified by his motorbike and arrested four days after the incident.

Presiding judge Al Sharif adjourned the hearing until a lawyer is appointed to defend him on February 21.