Dubai: A one-year prison term handed down to an Emirati student, aged 23, who was found guilty of cross-dressing and posing as a male prostitute, became final yesterday after Dubai's highest court upheld his sentence.
The Dubai Cassation Court yesterday upheld the sentence handed to Mohammad Nour Al Deen Hussain, nicknamed Hamdan British. Hussain was found guilty of posing as a male prostitute, posting on the internet indecent pictures of himself wearing bikinis, and cross-dressing to seduce men.
Presiding Judge Mohammad Nabeel Riyadh rejected Hussain's request to dismiss his charges, cancel his sentence, and pronounce him innocent.
Hussain's lawyer Yasser Al Naqbi asked the Cassation Court to cancel his client's one-year prison term and scrap his charges.
"My client was unlawfully arrested and detained," Al Naqbi said. "Law enforcement procedures were carried out unlawfully against him. He pleaded not guilty and we are seeking to clear his charges of cross-dressing, posing as a male prostitute, having consensual sex and violating the Quran's sanctity and slandering Islam," Al Naqbi argued in a written defence which he handed to the court.
Court records showed that Hussain had already begun serving his prison term, which became irrevocable yesterday.
The Dubai Appeals Court in July sentenced Hussain to one year in jail.
He had pleaded not guilty and denied all charges before the Appeals Court and the Court of First Instance.
