DUBAI // A cleaner at a well-known Egyptian restaurant molested a nine-year-old while she was washing her hands after having dinner with her family, Dubai Criminal Court has heard.
The Egyptian girl, N A, told prosecutors that she was at Farahat, in Al Muraqqabat, Deira, when the incident occurred at about 10pm on December 12 last year.
“I noticed that the women’s and men’s toilets were only separated by a wooden barrier and there was a cleaner inside the toilet where I was washing my hands but I didn’t give much care to that,” said the girl.
She added that suddenly the Bangladeshi cleaner told her that he was a friend before he hugged and kissed her on the lips.
“I got confused and scared so I ran into one of the toilets and locked myself for a while until he went away,” she said.
However, when she unlocked the toilet door, the man was waiting for her and repeated five times that she should not tell her mother.
The girl’s mother, M A, 38, who is also Egyptian, said that she was taking her younger son to wash his hands when she saw her daughter running down the stairs from the second floor of the restaurant.
“She looked very scared to the extent that I got scared and, when I asked her what was wrong, she told me the cleaner had kissed her and hugged her,” said the mother, who informed her husband right away and he called police.
“We came to find the parents very upset and tense,” said Yemeni policeman H A, 60.
Police apprehended the defendant, A K, 28, and referred him to prosecution.
He denied a charge of sexual assault at Dubai Criminal Court on Thursday morning.
He awaits a verdict on March 30.
salamir@thenational.ae