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Man jailed for blackmailing colleague

An Arab expatriate was sentenced by the Abu Dhabi Criminal Court to a year in jail, to be followed by deportation, on the charges of threat, extortion and breach of privacy of his female colleague.

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The defendant, working in a government department, allegedly took some pictures of his woman colleague without her permission, and threatened to put them up on social networks unless she paid him Dh50,000 within two days.

The incident occurred when the victim used her office computer to charge her mobile phone that contained her personal photographs which got saved on her PC during the process.

The defendant took advantage of this by downloading and saving her photos from the computer without her knowledge.

Several months later, the defendant, posing as a woman, contacted the victim by email and threatened to publish the pictures on the social network unless she pays him Dh50,000 within two days.

The victim did not give in to the extortion demand, and reported the matter to the authorities, which tracked the email and arrested the defendant from his office. The defendant, when interrogated, confessed to having downloaded the woman’s photographs and sending her threatening messages, but denied the blackmailing charges. He said he had asked her for money jokingly.

The court, and upon the defendant’s request, gave him many chances to reconcile with the victim so that the latter would forgive him and drop the case against him, but the efforts proved futile and the case could not be settled amicably.

The court found the defendant guilty and sentenced him to one-year imprisonment, to be followed by deportation.

news@khaleejtimes.com