Dubai: A pilot lost his legal battle after Dubai’s highest court convicted him of exposing himself and committing a lewd act on the balcony of a five-star hotel in Dubai Downtown.
The American pilot, S.M., was caught on camera gesturing lewdly on the balcony of his hotel room in October.
The Dubai Cassation Court rejected S.M.’s appeal and upheld a one-month suspended jail term against him despite his having pleaded not guilty.
Presiding judge Mustafa Al Shennawi also confirmed that the accused will be deported immediately considering that the ruling has become final against S.M.
The Appeal Court earlier suspended the defendant’s one-month jail term for three years on condition that he does not repeat the crime.
His lawyers argued that law enforcement procedures were carried out unlawfully against their client.
A Nepali security guard was on duty when he saw the accused exposing himself and gesturing lewdly outside his hotel room.
The Nepali guard immediately approached the hotel’s security supervisor and informed him about what he had seen.
The hotel’s head of security went to check and when he saw the American man, he photographed him mid-act.
Records said when the hotel’s security guard went to the man’s room to ask him to stop, he did not answer the door.
The Nepali witness testified that he heard a number of hotel guests and residents, who lived in residential units around the hotel, shouting when they saw S.M. on the balcony.
Prosecutors produced the photos that showed the accused standing in the balcony and committing the lewd act as material evidence against the defendant.
The hotel’s head of security told interrogators that the defendant had been reprimanded earlier for similar behaviour.
“We received a number of complaints from guests and tourists, who stayed at the hotel, who had spotted the defendant repeatedly doing the same lewd act on the balcony. The American signed an undertaking in which he promised not to repeat the lewd behaviour at the hotel,” he said.
Lawyers argued before the court that the undertaking did not bear any official signature.
They also argued that S.M. was photographed without prosecutors’ permission.
They even contended that prosecution witnesses’ statement were inconsistent.
“My client was not aware that his behaviour is a lewd act in public. He did not intend to break the law. Besides the police lieutenant, who questioned my client, coerced him to confess after he falsely promised not to take legal action against him if he pleaded guilty. But the lieutenant did the opposite,” argued one of the lawyers.
