Dubai: Dubai Court of Appeal yesterday overturned a ruling convicting a gardener on charges of raping a 15-year-old teenager on seven occasions.
The 26-Pakistani worker, who was found not guilty, was earlier sentenced to three years jail followed by deportation by the Court of First Instance.
The Egyptian teenager’s father requested his Pakistani co-worker to come to his place to trim his children’s hair in 2016.
Following several visits by the Pakistani who gave his son regular haircuts, the father realised his son had started having nightmares and wasn’t sleeping well.
When he took his son to a doctor, the father was advised to admit him to a hospital for a thorough check-up.
After the boy spent six months getting treated, doctors notified the father that his son had been sodomised repeatedly.
The father reported the matter to the police who detained the Pakistani man.
Court papers said the Pakistani is a gardener, but it was not clear why the Egyptian called him to cut his son’s hair.
The accused, who told judges that he was in Pakistan at the time when the incident was reported to have happened, submitted what he claimed was a waiver from the boy’s father.
The Egyptian father said he took his son to the hospital after the latter started suffering from insomnia and mental trauma. “Following six months of examination and treatment, doctors told me that my son had been raped several times at my residence. I reported it the police in February 2018,” he testified.
The teenager told prosecutors: “My father used to ask him to come over to give me and my brothers a haircut. Once, he took advantage of the fact that my parents had left the house and forced himself on me. Since then, he had sex with me around seven times. I couldn’t resist him because I was too scared and he was strong.”