Dubai Court upholds acquittal of Iranian who was accused of kidnapping, attempted rape

Prosecutors lost their appeal against the acquittal of a 19-year-old Iranian accused of kidnapping and attempting to rape a student.

DUBAI// Prosecutors lost their appeal against the acquittal of a 19-year-old Iranian who was accused of kidnapping and attempting to rape a student after pretending to be a police officer.

On June 12, Dubai Criminal Court found the defendant not guilty of charges of kidnap, attempted rape and physical assault.

The Bahraini plaintiff, whose age is not mentioned in court records, said that the accused stopped them on December 3 last year while he was with a friend on a motorbike in Al Muhaisnah area.

“It was about 8pm when he drove his car close to our bike and ordered us to stop,” the sstudent said in records. “He said he was a policeman but screamed at us when we asked him for an ID and said he does not show his card to children.”

He added that he was dragged to the defendant’s car who drove around for five minutes before he parked in the same neighborhood and asked the boy to have sex with him.

“I refused so he slapped me on the face a few times and tried to undress me but I resisted and ran out of the car,” he said.

Records show that the accused drove off when the boy’s older brother came towards the car.

“When he stopped our bike, he took away its key and ordered us to come to his car,” the friend told prosecutors. “But we walked away from him so he drove his car slowly towards us and sightly hit my friend to scare us.”

The Iranian was found not guilty but prosecutors appealed seeking conviction and lost as the Dubai Court of Appeal upheld the man’s acquittal.