Four men charged with sexual exploitation
A jobless man has strongly denied the charge of collaborating with three men to sexually exploit a woman
Dubai: A jobless man has strongly denied the charge of collaborating with three men to sexually exploit a woman.
He claimed that he had consensual sex with her.
"I was a customer and went to that place to have sex… I didn't rape her. She had agreed to have sex with me. I strongly deny the rape and human trafficking charges," defended the 32-year-old Bangladeshi man when he appeared, along with his two compatriots and an Indian, at the Dubai Court of First Instance yesterday.
Prosecutors charged 32-year-old S.A. and his compatriots, 28-year-old M.L. and 21-year-old M.S., and a 35-year-old Indian, J.R., with violating the human trafficking law by sexually exploiting the neediness and poverty of a 22-year-old Bangladeshi woman, identified as D.Y.
S.A. was solely charged with raping D.Y. under duress after threatening to tie her up to a chair.
S.A. pleaded not guilty when Presiding Judge Hamad Abdul Latif Abdul Jawad levelled charges against him. "I am innocent… I deny the human trafficking charges. I was the one who processed a visa for D.Y. and brought her to Dubai," said M.L. when he defended himself in courtroom four. M.S. and J.R. also pleaded not guilty.
"Since the minute I arrived at the airport, M.L. took my passport and drove me to a house where I was told that I was not allowed to go out. They threatened me that if I left the house, the police would arrest me.
"I rejected to work in prostitution and asked M.L. to send me back to my country. Later I was forced to have sex with men for money under duress. When the suspects were moving us to another house, I pushed away the man who was watching me and ran to the nearest shop and called for help," claimed the woman in her statement.
Records said the woman directed a police patrol to the house where she was allegedly being forced to work as prostitute.
D.Y. claimed to interrogators that S.A. raped her shortly after a customer went out of her room.
An Emirati first corporal from Dubai police's anti-narcotics department testified that the woman called them from a shop and reported that she had been forced in to the sex trade. Police raided the house in Al Rifa'a and arrested the suspects.
The court will assign a lawyer to defend the suspects when it reconvenes next month.
