Dubai: A businessman and his nephew have been accused of exploiting five teenage girls and forcing them into prostitution under threat of publishing their naked photos on the internet.

The 32-year-old Bangladeshi businessman, H.A., and his 30-year-old nephew, J.G., were said to have lured their compatriot teenagers to Dubai where they promised to hire them as housemaids.

Both defendants were then said to have confined the five teenagers in a villa which was being run as a brothel.

The businessman was accused of repeatedly raping three of the girls.

One of the girls, aged 17, testified that H.A. raped her nearly ten times and took naked photos of her.

“He brought me here to work as a housemaid in August 2012. H.A. raped me more than 10 times. He confiscated my passport when he picked me up from the airport. He locked me up with other girls in the villa where I was forced to have sex with strangers. The suspects ripped off my clothes and took naked snapshots, which they used to coerce me to work in prostitution… they threatened to publish my photos on the internet,” claimed the girl.

The suspects pleaded not guilty and denied their accusations when they defended themselves before the Dubai Court of first Instance.

“No. That is not true. I didn’t do that,” argued H.A. when he defended himself before presiding judge Maher Salama Al Mahdi,.

According to the charge sheet, prosecutors said the suspects took advantage of the poverty of the teenagers and their need for a job and exploited them sexually. They flew the girls, aged between 17 and 19, to Dubai to work as housemaids and then forced them into prostitution.

The teenagers testified before prosecutors that the defendants cheated them and convinced them to come to Dubai to work as housemaids.

The alleged victims claimed that the defendants forced them into prostitution after they locked them up in an old villa in Deira.

An Omani policeman testified that Dubai Police’s Operation Room was informed about a girl confined in a villa where she was being forced into prostitution.

“A police team rushed to the area. We spotted a girl’s hand waving from a ventilation window. There were two men standing outside the villa. The two men told us that there were women confined inside the villa. We raided the villa and arrested H.A. while he was trying to escape from the bathroom window. Three teenagers were freed from a room locked from outside,” claimed the policeman.

An Emirati corporal testified that upon searching the businessman’s residence they found a prison permit to visit a Bangladeshi woman, accused of human trafficking.

Records said J.G. was arrested ten days following his uncle’s arrest.

The trial continues.