Dubai: A legal consultant has been accused of pulling a salon worker out from a lift towards the stairway room of a building where she lives and raping her at knifepoint.
The Egyptian legal consultant, A.M., was said to have parked his motorbike near the pavement once he spotted the 23-year-old Moroccan woman walking into the building in Al Nahda.
Then he entered the lift and pressed the button for the parking floor. Once the door opened, he forced her out and raped her at knifepoint at the stairway room in March.
Prosecutors charged the defendant with forcing the Moroccan to have sex with him against her will and impersonating a police officer.
The suspect entered a not guilty plea and firmly refuted his accusations when he defended himself before the Dubai Court of First Instance.
“I did not rape her … I did not claim to be a policeman,” said A.M. when he defended himself before the presiding judge.
According to the charge sheet, prosecutors said the legal consultant abused the fact that he was alone with the woman in the lift when he ordered her to accompany him to the stairway room where he raped her. He also posed as a policeman when he showed her a walkie-talkie that reportedly had a Dubai Police badge on it.
The 23-year-old woman testified to prosecutors that she had just left a coffee shop and was going home when the suspect attacked her at 4.30am.
“Once I entered the building, I saw the suspect had parked his motorbike in front of the building. I called the lift and once it reached the ground floor, we entered the lift together. I was going to the fifth floor while he pressed the button for the parking floor. I told him that I was from Morocco once he asked where I come from … suddenly he pulled out a knife and pointed it at my neck. I immediately handed him my wallet and mobile phone as I thought that he wanted to rob me. He refused to take them and asked me to follow him out. He walked me out by force as he had the knife pointed to my back. We entered the stairway room … he molested me and then forced me to perform an indecent act before he had forced sex with me. While he was dressing up, a walkie-talkie fell out from his pocket and then he showed me an ID and claimed to be a policeman. He left. I called up my friend who advised me to report the incident to the police immediately,” she claimed.
Records said the woman identified the defendant at the police line up once she was summoned to the police station.
A police corporal claimed that the suspect was arrested four days after the incident as he was identified by his motorbike.
“During questioning, A.M. alleged that he was present in the lift when he took out a medal from his pocket that made the woman scared. Then he alleged that she agreed to have sex with him once he asked her to do so,” he claimed.
The court will appoint a lawyer to defend the suspect when it reconvenes next month.
