Lawyer disputes maid's rape charge against client

Dubai: A lawyer told a court yesterday that his client, an engineer, was at work at the time when his housemaid accused him of raping her repeatedly.

"The Bangladeshi housemaid alleged that my client raped her on March 6 and 7," the lawyer said.

"Well today [Monday], countering her baseless claims, we provide the Dubai Court of First Instance a time schedule [issued from the suspect's employer] confirming that he was on duty during the time when the housemaid claimed she got raped," argued advocate Abdul Moneim Bin Suwaidan in courtroom four yesterday.

The suspect, M.A., 33, had earlier pleaded not guilty and denied rape charges filed by the maid. The 27-year-old woman had alleged that M.A. was alone with her at home while his family had gone out.

In her statement, the maid alleged that the suspect raped her the first time inside the kitchen four days after she had started working for him.

"He used a contraceptive… on my tenth day of work, I was surprised when I woke up that I had been undressed and the suspect slept beside me naked. When I screamed, he ... put a pill in my mouth and I lost consciousness," the housemaid said.

Bin Suwaidan told presiding Judge Hamad Abdul Latif Abdul Jawad that in line with the housemaid's statement, "the rape incident would have been impossible to have taken place the way she claimed it happened".

A verdict is scheduled to be delivered on Monday.