Dubai: A businessman has been cleared of indulging in a sex-out-of-wedlock activity after his lawyer argued in court that his client’s sex photos were fabricated and Photoshopped.

In November, the Dubai Appeal Court upheld a one-month jail term against the Indian businessman after he was found guilty of having oral sex and exchanging kisses with a woman who was not his wife.

The businessman’s stepson was using his mother’s laptop when he saw obscene images of his stepfather [the businessman] with an unidentified woman performing oral sex on him and indulging in different sexual activities in April 2015.

In January, the Dubai Cassation Court overturned the man’s conviction and ordered the Appeal Court to hold a retrial.

During the retrial, the businessman’s lawyer Ali Abdullah Al Shamsi contended in court that the criminal case was fabricated and brought against his client out of malice.

“The images of my client in a sexual activity that were submitted to the primary court were obtained in an unlawful manner and had been montaged and Photoshopped. They had been tampered with in a professional and technical way to indict my client. Besides, this whole case was lodged out of malice by client’s wife and stepsons due to several pending legal disputes between them in Dubai Courts,” contended Al Shamsi.

The Indian suspect had pleaded not guilty and refuted the charges before all the court stages [primary, appeal, cassation and during the retrial].

Al Shamsi defended before the Appeal Court that all investigations and technical reports were full of contradictions and unfounded evidence.

On Monday, presiding judge Aysar Fouad cancelled the businessman’s jail term and acquitted him.

“The court has acquitted the suspect of any wrongdoing and dismissed the civil lawsuit that was lodged against him by the claimant in civil right [the wife],” said presiding judge Fouad in courtroom 20.

In his defence, lawyer Al Shamsi contended that the claimant had testified that she obtained the photos from the laptop that was not examined by Dubai Police’s forensic laboratory although it had been reported that the photos were clicked with an iPhone.

The defence lawyer had also asked the court to have the MacBook Pro [from which the claimant had taken the images] examined by the forensic laboratory to substantiate whether the aforementioned images were captured with the MacBook Pro or an iPhone.

“The technical expert testified that the images were extracted from an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 plus … and that had contradicted the claimant’s allegations that the images were downloaded from a laptop or a desktop. She gave in an inconsistent statement and all her allegations were unsubstantiated,” argued Al Shamsi.

The businessman’s deportation order was also cancelled.

Monday’s ruling remains subject to appeal before the Cassation Court within 30 days.