Man in court over WhatsApp gang-rape threat messages

Dubai: A public employee has been accused of threatening to have a woman gang-raped by his friends in a WhatsApp message.

The 18-year-old Emirati employee was said to have sent a number of messages on WhatsApp to his compatriot and threatened to harm her and have his friends sneak into her bedroom and assault her on September 30 and October 1.

The suspect did not enter a plea before the Dubai Court of First Instance when he was brought from is detention and produced before presiding judge Mohammad Jamal on Sunday.

According to the charges sheet, the suspect sent a number of WhatsApp messages to the woman. In his WhatsApp messages, the suspect wrote “I will organise a sex party … I swear by my mother’s head that I will let them enter your house and rape you. I won’t do it but they would do it”.

Records did not identify the nature of the suspect’s relation to the woman.

The woman, who is in her 20s, claimed to prosecutors that the suspect texted her the messages over two days.

“He sent the messages from his personal mobile phone to mine on WhatsApp. The authorities had already examined the phones,” she testified.

The suspect was cited as admitting to prosecutors that he sent offensive and defamatory messages to the woman.

A ruling will be heard on Sunday.