Appeals court acquits gardener of rape charge

Dubai: A gardener has been spared three years in prison after the Dubai Appeals Court acquitted him of trespassing into a Lebanese woman's villa and trying to rape her at knifepoint.

The Appeals Court overturned the primary verdict, three years in jail, and acquitted the 26-year-old Pakistani gardener, for lack of evidence.

"My client did not trespass into the woman's bedroom and attempt to rape her… she gave an incredible and illogical and unfounded statement. She claimed that he climbed over her bed and attempted to rape her while she was asleep, then she said that she punched him repeatedly and threw him off her bed.

Contradiction

Meanwhile, medical reports contradicted her allegations and confirmed that he did not have a single scratch or injury when doctors examined him," defended the gardener's lawyer Hashim Malek.

The defendant, H.A., earlier pleaded innocent to charges of trespassing, threat, attempted rape and theft.

Advocate Malek argued in his defence: "My client was in the mosque praying the Fajr (morning prayer) at the time when the Lebanese saleswoman claimed that the incident happened."