Dubai: A man was sentenced to six months in jail followed by deportation for threatening to shame his co-worker who later committed suicide, a Dubai Court of First Instance ruled on Thursday.
The Pakistani defendant threatened to share photos of the victim performing an indecent act, before the latter killed himself.
In July 2017, the Filipino co-worker was reported to have hung himself in the washroom of a trading company’s accommodation at Al Muhaisnah.
According to records, when police arrived at the scene, they found his body hanging and a handwritten suicide note nearby, in which he asked for the 23-year-old Pakistani to be arrested.
Primary police interrogations revealed that the Pakistani, who works as a dyer, had discovered that his Filipino co-worker had been involved in a homosexual affair with another co-worker.
The accused was said to have obtained photos of the Filipino indulging in an indecent act with a colleague and had blackmailed the victim and threatened to shame him, if he didn’t give him an iPhone 5.
Prosecutors charged the suspect of misusing WhatsApp to blackmail the Filipino by circulating his photos.
An Emirati policeman said in records: “We were alerted about a suicide at the workers accommodation. We found the Filipino man’s body hanging from the ceiling. He had left a handwritten suicide note in which he asked for the arrest of the Pakistani suspect. During questioning, the defendant alleged that he knew that the Filipino was gay and had been involved in an affair with another colleague.
“The defendant claimed that after his countryman colleague left the UAE, he sent on WhatsApp photos of the Filipino undressed and performing an indecent act on him. He forwarded those explicit images to the Filipino and threatened to circulate them via WhatsApp if he didn’t give him an iPhone 5.”
