DUBAI // A man who was sentenced in absentia to life in jail for raping his maid has had his term reduced to five years in a retrial.
Dubai Criminal Court sentenced Emirati R A, 29, in his absence, to life in jail but he applied for a retrial, a right given to those sentenced in absentia.
Prosecutors said that he threatened to kill his Indonesian maid if she did not bow to his demands.
On November 27 last year R A called on his 30-year-old maid to iron his clothes in his room.
“I was preparing breakfast for his hospitalised wife so I asked him to bring his clothes to the kitchen and I will have them ironed,” testified the victim.
She recalled that he insisted she come to his room. When she went, he locked the door and removed the key. Anticipating danger, the woman tried to take refuge in the bathroom but R A grabbed her, threw he to the ground and raped her.
“I begged him repeatedly, I reminded him he was married, asked him how he would feel if someone did the same to his wife, I told him I was married, I begged him but in vain,” said the victim.
She also told prosecutors that her sponsor often touched her since she arrived in the country. “He would come to my room, hug me and touch my breast,” she said. “I told him that I would scream, so he used to leave me, but this time no one was in the house — the other two maids were in the outside kitchen.”
Prosecutors said that R A, after raping the woman, forced her to take Dh200. “I refused but he said he would kill me, and would break my arm,” she said.
The other two maids knew something was up and eventually got the woman to tell them what had happened. They advised her to run away but she was stopped at the entrance to the house by her sponsor and forced back inside. “He threatened to kill me if I told anyone,” she said.
The woman then managed to call the Indonesian Embassy, which advised her to call police.
R A will now serve the reduced term of five years in jail.
salamir@thenational.ae