Teenager jailed after having sex with minor

Dubai: An Emirati teenager has been jailed for having sex with his 13-year-old girlfriend who court records say willingly went to him after abandoning a two-day family vacation.

The 18-year-old Emirati escaped capital punishment after the Dubai Court of First Instance jailed him for three months.

Prosecutors charged the Emirati student, R.S., with having sex with a minor, and asked the court to implement the toughest punishment applicable for such crimes. The Public Prosecution asked the criminal court to apply article 354 of the Federal Penal Code which stipulates that any suspect who has sex with a minor (under the age of 14) faces the death penalty.

Prosecutors said the 13-year-old schoolgirl sneaked out of her hotel, where she was spending a two-day vacation with her grandparents and sister, to take a cab to a mall in Jumeirah where she phoned her boyfriend and asked to be picked up.

The girl willingly went to her boyfriend's house where they had an intercourse, before the man received a call from police asking him to come to the police station.

The student pleaded not guilty when he appeared in court but admitted: "I am guilty but we had consensual sex. It wasn't against her will or by force."

The jury granted R.S. a lenient judgment due to his young age (under 21) and the circumstances of the case.

"We came to spend a vacation here in Dubai. Without anybody noticing from my family, I escaped from the hotel around 6.15am and headed to a mall. I was going to shop when I thought of my boyfriend and phoned him. He came and picked me up and we headed to his house in Al Wasl. We walked silently into his bedroom without anyone noticing. We had intercourse," testified the schoolgirl in her statement to prosecutors.

Records said the girl stayed for 15 minutes with R.S.'s cousin who then called his friend to drop her back at the mall. "When we arrived at the mall there were CID men who took us to the police station," she said.

R.S. admitted to prosecutors that he had consensual sex with the girl. The primary judgment has become irrevocable as it exceeded the 15-day period to appeal.