Dubai: A man has been accused of luring a mentally challenged teenager to his car, driving away and parking in an unlit street where he sodomised him.

The 18-year-old victim was said to be walking near his family house when he met the 34-year-old suspect and they exchanged mobile numbers in February.

The man called the teen around 9pm and talked him in to going for a car ride, according to records, before he parked in an unlit street in Al Rashidiya where he sexually assaulted him.

At 11.30pm and shortly after the youth’s father came to know what had allegedly happened to his son, he took him to the police station and lodged a sexual assault complaint against the man.

Two days later, police arrested the man at the courier company where he worked and took him into custody.

Prosecutors accused the suspect, a Pakistani national, of sodomising the teen who is of Indian descent.

Medical reports confirmed that the teen suffers from a form of light mental disability and is not aware of his actions.

The suspect pleaded not guilty and refuted the accusation when he appeared before the Dubai Court of First Instance on Tuesday.

“I haven’t done that,” he was heard telling the court through an interpreter in courtroom three.

When prosecutors heard the victim’s statement, the teen reasserted his complaint that he was assaulted.

A police lieutenant testified to prosecutors that the boy and his father walked into the police station and reported what had happened.

“The boy claimed that after he exchanged contacts with the suspect, the [suspect] called him and convinced him to ride with him in his car. Then the suspect drove off to an unlit street where he offered to have sex with the schoolboy who refused … then the suspect touched the boy, removed his clothes and sodomised him. Two days later, we apprehended the suspect, who admitted that he had met the boy near a grocery store in Al Rashidiya. The suspect claimed that the 18-year-old asked him for Dh10 but he did not give him … then the boy sat with him in the car before the suspect drove away and then had a sexual encounter with the boy without sodomising him,” the lieutenant told prosecutors.

Presiding judge Mohammad Jamal said the court will appoint a lawyer to defend the suspect when it reconvenes next month.