Dubai man cleared of rape but jailed for consensual sex

Man charged with rape is sentenced to six months in prison after court decides the sex was consensual.

DUBAI // A man was cleared today of rape but sent to prison for six months for consensual sex.

O?P, 30, from Moldavia, told the Criminal Court that M?H, 25, from Syria, jumped into her taxi uninvited as she left a dance club at the Grand Habtour Hotel in the early hours of December 15 last year.

She claimed that during the trip she agreed to accompany him to his one-bedroom flat so he could “grab some items”, but that when they arrived he raped her.

She said that when they entered the flat she saw a men playing cards but they left the room when she appeared.

“I was astonished when he threw me to the sofa and started pulling down my trousers,” she said.

She said she struggled and fought back, crying and begging him to stop but he overpowered her, undressed her and raped her.

“After he finished, he apologised and asked for my forgiveness,” she said, adding that she rejected his apology and called police.

Police arrested the man while he was in his bed sleeping.

“When we told him were police and we came in relation to the rape of the woman, he said that she had assaulted him,” said A?M, 28, an Emirati police officer. “He uncovered his back and showed us some scratches caused by the woman.”

The man denied charges of rape and physical assault.

Testimonies from some of the men who were playing cards in the flat said the woman flirted and became intimate with the man.

He was sentenced to six months in jail on a consensual sex charge and acquitted of assault charge.

He will be deported after serving his sentence.

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