Seven jailed for sexually exploiting a housemaid

Dubai: A court on Tuesday upheld a three-year prison term for seven defendants convicted of sexually exploiting a Nepalese housemaid and running a brothel in Dubai.

The Dubai Appeals Court's Presiding Judge Mustafa Al Shennawi yesterday upheld the conviction of the seven defendants comprising two Emiratis, two Indians, two Bangladeshis and one who did not carry identification documents, of charges including human trafficking and running a brothel.

According to Tuesday's judgment, Presiding Judge Al Shennawi said the expatriate convicts would be deported after serving their jail terms.

The court also upheld the acquittal of the seven convicts for different charges, which ranged from assaulting and threatening to kill police to damaging two police cars.

A 26-year-old Emirati suspect, M.J., was also acquitted of assaulting police and vandalising police cars.

The seven defendants had earlier pleaded not guilty and denied sexually exploiting the housemaid, vandalising police cars and assaulting the police who tried to rescue the housemaid.

Prosecutors accused four of the seven defendants of forming an organised group of human traffickers and exploiting the housemaid sexually by compelling her to have sex with 25 men per day in a place they ran as a brothel.

"I don't know anything about the whole incident," argued one of the Emirati defendants, A.O.

His compatriot, M.M., denied the charge of sexually exploiting the housemaid.

Prosecutors charged A.O., M.M. an Indian, H.H., a Bangladeshi, F.S., plus a runaway suspect, named Aziz, with exploiting the housemaid sexually and forcing her into the sex trade under duress and threat.