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Policeman’s life term for sexual assault on tourist upheld
The Dubai Court of Cassation, the highest court in the emirate, recently upheld the life term awarded to a 26-year-old Emirati policeman by two lower courts for kidnapping and sexually assaulting a Japanese tourist.
The Court of First Instance convicted the policeman in March and sentenced him to life imprisonment, which is 25 years in the UAE, for trying to rape the 24-year-old woman after kidnapping her in his 4WD with tinted glass on the pretext of giving her a ride to Hatta Heritage Village. The verdict was upheld later by the Court of Appeal.
The incident, as told by the tourist, happened on March 14 last year in Hatta as she was walking towards the Heritage Village with a map and a bottle of water around noon. The defendant, driving a 4WD, stopped for her and offered her a ride.
She felt lost and tired so she rode with him. On the way, he took different directions other than those given to her earlier by a bus driver. When she asked him where he was taking her, he claimed that he wanted to “show her the valley”.
He drove towards an isolated mountainous area where he frankly told her he wanted to have sex with her. He threatened to kill her if she did not obey him.
He screamed at her repeatedly to scare her. She resisted and pushed him away. He stopped short of raping her when he learnt that she had her menstruation period. However, he still sexually assaulted her. He slapped and punched her many times to make her succumb.
He dropped her later near a bus stop and she walked a short distance before boarding a bus to the Japanese Consulate where she reported the incident.
She did not know how to contact the police since she was new in the emirate.
The forensic doctor confirmed that the woman was sexually assaulted.
Marks on her hand showed that there was a struggle between her and the defendant.
An Emirati police lieutenant, who interrogated the tourist at the forensic medicine department, described her as being in a state of shock and fear at that time.
The woman thought at first that the man who sexually assaulted her was Asian and she reported him as such.
The police combed the Hatta area looking among Asians but they later widened their search to include Arabs, Gulf nationals and Emiratis. The defendant was among the suspects since he drove a tinted 4WD that matched the descriptions given by the tourist
All suspects were brought for interrogation but the defendant was being evasive and sometimes he switched off his mobile phone. This raised more suspicion.
In September last year, he reported the incident to the Hatta police station after being convinced by other police officers.
He was then taken to the General Department of Criminal Investigation.
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