Dubai woman acquitted in cybercrime case over alleged explicit content

Dubai: A Dubai Misdemeanour court has acquitted an Arab woman of charges related to possessing and storing pornographic material using information technology, ruling that the case lacked both legal and evidentiary basis and was built on flawed and unlawfully obtained evidence.

According to court records, the alleged incidents took place within the jurisdiction of Al Barsha Police Station in October 2025.

The woman had been referred to trial following a complaint filed by her former husband, who accused her of storing explicit content with the intent to display it to others, in violation of the UAE’s cybercrime law.

According to the forensic report, which examined the complainant’s mobile phone, investigators extracted ten video clips and twenty-two images described as offensive to public morals. The materials included footage showing unidentified individuals engaged in explicit conduct, including indecent acts recorded on camera.

In its ruling, the court found that the prosecution’s case relied on contradictory forensic evidence and failed to establish either the material element of the crime or the required criminal intent. The court further ordered the deletion of all images and video clips forming the subject of the case, while dismissing a related civil compensation claim after the complainant failed to pay the prescribed court fees, and ordering him to bear the legal costs.

The defence, led by lawyer Mohammed Abdullah Al Redha, successfully argued that the woman was the victim of a deliberate and malicious scheme involving hacking, unlawful surveillance and extortion.

Central to the case was a critical discrepancy in forensic reports. While the prosecution claimed that incriminating material had been found on the woman’s mobile device, technical findings confirmed that her phone remained locked and could not be accessed by forensic experts, meaning no data was ever extracted from it.

Instead, the evidence — consisting of multiple videos and images — was retrieved from the complainant’s own device. The defence demonstrated that these materials were mistakenly attributed to the woman due to a secretarial error in the electronic case file, where reports from two separate devices were placed sequentially, creating a misleading impression.

The court accepted that this error undermined the prosecution’s case and confirmed that there was no proof the woman had stored or possessed the materials on her device, nor that she had shared or intended to share them.

Further evidence presented during the trial revealed that the complainant had illegally accessed the woman’s private cloud account without her knowledge or consent. He admitted during investigations that he had infiltrated her iCloud account to obtain personal images and videos.

Based on case files, the ex-husband then threatened to send private photos and videos — which he had unlawfully obtained — to her relatives and family members.

According to the legal memorandum, his actions were driven by blackmail and financial extortion. He sent these threats via WhatsApp in an attempt to force the woman into transferring ownership of multiple properties and assets to him.

Documents submitted to the court further stated that he sought to exploit the threat of reputational harm within her family as leverage to force her into surrendering her wealth.

In addition, it was established that the complainant had installed recording and eavesdropping devices inside the woman’s private car without her consent, as part of a broader pattern of unlawful surveillance and privacy violations.

The defence argued that the case was “malicious and fabricated”, asserting that the complainant had initiated legal proceedings to conceal his own criminal conduct and to exert pressure on the woman during their personal dispute. It maintained that the evidence was obtained through illegal means, rendering it legally invalid.

The court ruled that there was no evidence to support the allegation that the woman intended to display the materials to others — a key requirement for conviction under the cybercrime law — noting that the only party who brought the material into circulation was the complainant himself.

Following the acquittal, the defence formally requested that the case be referred to the Public Prosecution to investigate the complainant for illegal hacking, extortion, misuse of telecommunications, and providing false testimony.