Three jailed for abducting woman

Dubai: Three men have been jailed for kidnapping a saleswoman and forcing her to sign a promissory note for Dh70,000 if she did not want to be reported as a prostitute.

The Dubai Court of First Instance sentenced the three Palestinians, 33-year-old engineer T.A. and his 26-year-old brother S.A. and 28-year-old employee L.N., to five years in jail each.

Presiding Judge Fahmi Mounir, who pronounced yesterday's ruling also ordered that they be deported after the trio were found guilty of kidnapping the 33-year-old Egyptian saleswoman with deception and forgery and extortion.

Records said one of the accused invited her to dinner in Jumeirah. Meanwhile his associates posed as policemen and extorted the promissory note from her after they threatened to jail her for reportedly working in the sex industry had she not signed.

The Public Prosecution charged the convicts with forging and using police IDs, kidnapping the woman with deception, extorting and obtaining the promissory note from her.

S.A. and L.N. were charged with impersonating policemen, stealing the woman of Dh300 and obtaining the note under threat. The engineer was solely charged with aiding and abetting S.A. and L.N.

The convicts earlier denied their charges and dismissed the saleswoman's accusations. The ruling is still subject to appeal within 15 days.

The victim testified that the engineer invited her for dinner at a Jumeirah hotels. "We chatted in the car for two hours... S.A. and L.N. opened the doors suddenly, posed as CID and forced us to the backseat. One of them took my photo and they accused me of being a prostitute and claimed that they will deport me." Police arrested the convicts in a sting operation during which two fake police IDs were found on them.

Bitter pill: doctor in denial

A Chinese female doctor has denied giving an abortion pill to a five-month pregnant woman to abort her out-of-wedlock fetus for Dh2,300.

Three associates of the doctor have pleaded not guilty to aiding her to abort the Iranian woman, S.A., when they appeared before the Dubai Court of First Instance. The Public Prosecution charged the doctor, Z.K., with giving a pill to S.A. to abort her foetus.