(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) A 26-year-old Emirati man was recently sentenced to one-year imprisonment by the Court of First Instance for kidnapping a woman by dragging her from a lift to his apartment.
The court, however, cleared the defendant of trying to rape the 40-year-old Filipina he kidnapped.
He was fined Dh1,000 for consuming liquor.
The verdict has been appealed by both the defendant and the Public Prosecution. A hearing at the Court of Appeal is scheduled for the middle of next month.
According to the prosecution records, the accused dragged the alleged victim all the way through the corridor from the lift to his rented hotel apartment in Al Qusais to rape her. He managed to force her inside but was stopped short after hearing knocking on the door.
He faced charges of rape attempt, kidnap with the use of force and use of liquor.
He claimed during investigation that he grabbed the woman because he was drunk.
The complainant told the prosecutor that the incident happened when she went to visit her girlfriend in the hotel apartment where she lived around 6.30am. As she entered the building, she saw the defendant talking with the receptionist. She took the lift and the defendant followed her.
He went to the seventh floor and, to her shock, he grabbed her shoulder and her arm. He dragged her out of the lift by holding her waist and arm as she resisted and shouted. She tried to cling on to the wall in vain given his big physique.
He rang the bell of his apartment and pushed her inside after a man opened the door.
She went and sat on a chair. At that moment, someone knocked on the door.
As she kept screaming loudly and hysterically, the defendant signalled to her that he would slit her throat if she did not keep quiet.
The knocking continued and it appeared that it was a woman on the door. She was told to enter the bedroom. But she seized the opportunity and ran out when the defendant stepped outside to talk to the woman who was at the door.
The victim was in a state of panic and ran down the stairs where there was no light.
An Indian man, aged 24, who works as an accountant, said during investigation that he was in the defendant's apartment when the latter dragged a Filipina woman inside.
He heard her screaming 'don't kill me, I don't want to die'. He said that they had been having drinks with other people earlier in the defendant's apartment.
He added that the woman managed to escape when the defendant got busy answering his Moroccan girlfriend who had knocked on the door. A police lieutenant confirmed that the woman filed a complaint more than two weeks after the incident in February.
The CCTV footage of the floor where the alleged rape attempt took place showed the defendant dragging the woman to his apartment.
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