Mobile phone technician in Dubai blackmails woman, demands Dh100,000

Dubai - The Emirati woman filed a complaint with the police, who investigated the matter and arrested the defendant.

A mobile phone technician - who was convicted of blackmailing a woman by threatening to publish her private photos on social media if she didn't give him Dh100,000 - has appealed his three-year-jail sentence.
The Abu Dhabi Appeal Court heard that the Syrian man had sent the threatening text messages to the mobile phone of the Emirati victim's mother in Ramadan last year. In the messages, the man claimed he had private photos and personal information of the woman, and that he would publish them on social media if she didn't pay him.
The Emirati woman filed a complaint with the police, who investigated the matter and arrested the defendant.
The woman told the police that she had taken her Blackberry phone to a shop in the Khalidiyah area where the defendant worked as a salesman. She said he must have accessed her photos there.
"My phone had all my personal data, photos and family contact numbers, including that of my mother's, on which the blackmailer sent the threatening messages," she said.
The Abu Dhabi Criminal Court of First Instance had sentenced the man to three years in jail and ordered his deportation after he was found guilty of blackmailing the woman.
The man, however, appealed the sentence and denied the charge.
During the latest hearing at the appeal court, the Syrian told the judge that he didn't know the woman and that he had never received or repaired her phone.
He said he was the owner of the mobile phone shop and not a worker there. He claimed he was "shocked" when he was accused of blackmailing the woman.
ismail@khaleejtimes.com