Student charged with blackmailing girl, father

Dubai: A student has denied blackmailing an Emirati father by threatening to publish his 19-year-old daughter's indecent pictures if he did not get paid Dh10,000.

The 22-year-old Palestinian student pleaded not guilty when he appeared before the Dubai Court of First Instance yesterday.

Records quoted the 43-year-old father alleging that the suspect, M.R., sent a text message to his wife's mobile phone and demanded Dh10,000 in order not to publish what the suspect claimed as his daughter's pictures with another man.

"I am not guilty," said M.R. rejecting the accusations before Presiding Judge Fahmi Mounir.

The Public Prosecution charged the student with verbally threatening the father and his daughter. He was also charged with resisting arrest and assaulting a policeman who tried to arrest him during a sting operation.

The father claimed in his statement: "The defendant sent me a text message alleging that he possessed nude pictures of my daughter and which he threatened to promote amongst friends and on the internet if I didn't issue for him a replacement SIM card for his mobile phone. M.R. sent a text message to my wife claiming that he possessed five indecent pictures of my daughter in her underwear and that we have to pay Dh10,000 to return the indecent photos."

The 19-year-old girl claimed in her statement that the suspect forwarded her indecent pictures to her father's mobile phone.

"A suspect, who ran away took those private pictures from my mobile phone without my knowledge," the girl testified.