Dubai: A businessman has been jailed for three months for groping a woman shopper while she was with her family at the food court of Dubai Mall.
It was around midnight, when the Egyptian woman was passing by the food court and felt someone touching her bottom.
Shocked, the 25-year-old notified her sister-in-law.
She also alerted her brother who chased the 58-year-old Omani businessman in the mall and called the police.
The Omani businessman was arrested and taken in for questioning.
On Monday, the Dubai Court of First Instance found the accused guilty of walking behind the Egyptian woman and groping her.
Presiding judge Habib Awad said the defendant, who pleaded not guilty, will be deported after serving his jail term.
The woman said that the accused groped her back when she walked beside him.
“I felt that he touched me intentionally. I was shocked and stood there stifled for few seconds. Then I notified my sister-in-law and told her that the defendant had intended to grope me. When I told my brother, he walked behind the accused and told the police. I told the police the defendant had put his hand on my private part. He groped me on purpose,” she testified.
According to records, the defendant had been involved in similar groping incidents during Dubai Shopping Festival in 2005.
In the previous incidents, the defendant was bailed after having been made to sign an undertaking not to squeeze himself between groups of women and not to stand close to them.
The primary ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.
