Dubai: A salesman has been acquitted of threatening to kill a Russian tourist and blackmailing her to pay him Dh7,000 to return her lost passport, a court ruled on Monday.
The Dubai Court of First Instance dismissed the charges of threat and blackmail that were levelled against the 30-year-old Jordanian salesman for uncorroborated evidence.
Announcing yesterday's judgment, Presiding Judge Hamad Abdul Latif Abdul Jawad also referred the man, S.S., (who is in custody and being questioned over allegedly raping a British woman) to the Dubai Misdemeanours Court where he will be prosecuted for consuming liquor.
Prosecutors charged S.S. with threatening to kill the 35-year-old tourist, N.P., in order not to report him to the police and blackmailing her to pay him Dh7,000 in case she wanted him to return her lost passport.
"I am not guilty. I didn't do that it, it's untrue… she complained against me out of malice," the suspect said when he defended himself in court.
"After he dropped me home, I realised that I had lost my passport… he claimed to me the next day that a Russian man had found my passport and asked me to pay Dh5,000 to get it back. Later, he phoned me repeatedly and asked me to pay Dh7,000 for the passport. He threatened me," the tourist said in her testimony.
An Emirati policeman testified that after N.P. reported the threat, police detained the defendant in a sting operation. "I heard S.S. threatening her over the phone during the sting operation," said the policeman.
The primary judgment is still subject to appeal within 15 days.
