Swimming trainer in Dubai court over blackmailing woman with naked photos

The Sri Lankan was in a relationship with the Indian woman and is accused of demanding Dh10,000 in exchange for not sending the pictures to her family.

DUBAI // A swimming trainer is in court for taking photos of a naked woman and then allegedly using them to try to blackmail her out of Dh10,000.

Dubai Criminal Court was told on Thursday morning that Sri Lankan A L, 34, had been in a romantic relationship with Indian woman M R, 23.

Prosecutors said he had taken several pictures of his lover during their time together.

“He used his iPhone 5 to take the pictures then took my uncle’s Facebook account name and, when I broke up with him, he sent the pictures to my uncle,” said the woman.

She said her ex-lover sent the images after demanding cash, also sending them to her sister via the WhatsApp messaging service.

“I gave him Dh2,000 to delete the pictures,” M R said, adding that she also asked him not to tell her family about their relationship but he asked her for Dh10,000 to do what she wanted.

“When I didn’t give him more than the Dh2,000, he sent the pictures.”

The woman gave prosecutors the login details of the swimming trainer’s Facebook account and they saw that he had sent seven pictures of her naked to her uncle.

He was charged with taking pictures of M R and preparing them to be used electronically, taking naked pictures of M R and exchanging them with others through social media and with asking M R for Dh10,000 in return for not sending the photos to her family.

The trainer confessed to prosecutors that he kept photos of the woman on his phone and sent them to her family but in court he was not yet charged as the charges sheet was returned to prosecutors for an unspecified amendment.

The next hearing will be later this month.