DUBAI // Two drivers who pretended to be policemen before taking turns to rape a job-seeking female accountant in the back of a bus have had their seven-year jail sentence upheld.
The Filipina victim had met one of her attackers in a nightclub and he lured her into leaving with him by promising to find her a job.
L B, 31, said she was at the nightclub with friends who were visiting from Oman in the early hours of December 21, 2013.
“I sat near a man whom I had met in the elevator. He told me he was a Belgian investor and new in the UAE,” she said.
Later that night she talked with the man, Pakistani defendant N N, 31, again and he invited her to his hotel room to have a drink and discuss a job opportunity.
“We took a cab that dropped us near his hotel and we started walking,” she said.
“We passed near a parked white bus and all of a sudden he opened the bus door and pushed me inside it. Once inside he closed the door and slapped me on my face and said he was a detective and flashed an ID that I didn’t really see clearly.
“Then I saw the other defendant, A K, 27, sitting in the driver’s seat. He looked at me and told me he was working with Dubai Police, then he started driving.”
The first man then attacked the woman, beating and choking her while asking if she was a prostitute and who her pimp was.
“He ordered me to sexually pleasure A K, at which point he stopped the bus and came back near me and N N sat in the driver’s seat and continued driving,” she said.
Later the first man grabbed the woman by the hair and forced her to pleasure him, then lowered her trousers and raped her. When he was done, he switched with fellow Pakistani A K, who also forced her to pleasure him before raping her.
Emirati police officer A A, 27, testified that the victim managed to remember part of the number plate of the bus.
“We were able to locate the bus and apprehend the defendants. They stole a gold ring and Dh3,000 from the victim as well as her Blackberry,” said the officer.
A forensic report showed that DNA matching one of the defendants was found on her body but not the other, who used a condom when he raped her.
The pair did not appear at Dubai Criminal Court last May to face charges of kidnap, rape, theft and impersonation of police officers. They were convicted last December but both appealed and lost their appeal bid when the sentence was upheld by the Court of Appeal.
Both men will be deported after completing their jail terms.
salamir@thenational.ae
