Dubai: A man has been accused of raping a tourist in her hotel room after she invited him and his cousin over for a drink during her three-day stay in Dubai.
The 24-year-old American woman met the 29-year-old Moroccan man on board a Dubai-bound flight in December.
Once she got acquainted with him, she told him where she was staying and invited him over for a drink.
The man asked if he could bring over his cousin and she agreed. The two men visited the woman in her suite in a Dubai Marina hotel. The three of them consumed alcohol late into the night. The woman realised she had been raped when she woke up in the morning.
In her complaint to police, the woman alleged that she took the 29-year-old into her bedroom when he asked for a phone charger. He then punched her and had forced sex with her.
Prosecutors charged the 29-year-old with raping the tourist. All three were accused of consuming alcohol.
The Moroccan pleaded not guilty before the Dubai Court of First Instance on Wednesday.
“No, sir … I didn’t rape her,” he told presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi.
The tourist told prosecutors that she invited the accused over to her hotel room.
“He took my permission to bring his cousin. We drank liquor all night and then he asked me for a phone charger. When I took him to the bedroom to give him the charger, he punched me and I lost consciousness … when I woke up in the morning, I noticed that I had been undressed and raped. There were traces of semen on my thigh … when I walked out of the bedroom, the two men who were still there left instantly. I alerted the hotel’s security about what had happened. I also told them that Dh5,500, earrings and my passport were stolen,” she said.
A policeman told prosecutors that the hotel’s front desk manager notified them about the incident.
The trial continues.
