Dubai: An Italian has been jailed for four months for molesting a sleeping female passenger on a Dubai-bound flight and making obscene gestures to two stewardesses.
The Dubai Court of First Instance yesterday convicted the accused, R.C., 53, of sexually molesting his female co-passenger, an Indonesian, and indecently gesturing in public.
Prosecutors accused R.C., who suffers from Parkinson's disease, of groping the Indonesian passenger after she took a sedative and went to sleep stretching out across the middle-row seats on the Emirates flight.
Presiding Judge Al Saeed Mohammad Barghout said the accused will be deported after serving his term.
R.C.'s lawyer, Ali Abdullah Al Shamsi, said: "My client is sick and suffers from Parkinson's disease. We submitted a medical report confirming that he has Parkinson's but the report did not decisively clarify whether he was responsible for his actions.
"We ask the court to dismiss the case for jurisdictional purposes as the crime happened while the aircraft was in the skies… it happened consensually, R.C. did not molest the passenger."
A 30-year-old Polish stewardess testified the incident happened in the four-seat middle row on an in-bound flight from Jakarta.
"The passengers were asleep… I spotted him put the woman's leg between his and massage her. Although asleep, she moved her leg away but R.C. put it back and covered it with a blanket. I informed my Indonesian supervisor," she said. "When police were taking him away (in Dubai airport), he flashed his middle fingers at us."
