Ethiocross Blog

Khaleej Times:-DUBAI - The Court of Appeal acquitted on Sunday a human resource manager of the charge of raping his housemaid quashing thus the jail sentence verdict and the deportation order given by a lower court.

The Court of First Instance sentenced on December 9, last year the 48-year-old Palestinian manager to one year in prison but modified the rape charge and turned it to having illicit sex out of the wedlock with his Ethiopian housemaid.

The manager was originally charged with raping his maid but the Court of First Instance re-framed the charge to consensual sex.

According to the charge sheet, the Palestinian sponsor raped his maid repeatedly after beating and threatening her in his Qusais apartment from December 2008 to April 2009.

The plaintiff, a 22-year-old housemaid, alleged that the defendant raped her many times when he used to be alone with her in his apartment in Freej al Murar.

She alleged she did not report about him before April 16 in 2009 out of fear.

About one month after he hired her and after returning from a hospital where she had the visa medical check-ups, she alleged he raped her for the first time.

“As he was raping me I could not scream as I was very scared and because he beat me and pulled my hair,” she said. She claimed that the defendant locked the apartment’s door.

She said he promised he would open a bank account for her but never did. “He used to rape me in Dubai after he used to leave his family in Abu Dhabi,” she claimed.

Once, he brought his wife and ?children to the same apartment in Dubai and accompanied them to a shopping centre.

“He came back alone shortly after and raped me using the same style of force and beating,” she alleged.

The plaintiff alleged that her sponsor threatened her that if she ever informed his wife he would kill her with a knife. He said I could choose between cancelling the residency or stay in the country and work for the others by paying him Dh500.”

She said her employer and his wife took her to a hospital and it turned out that she was not pregnant.

Asked by the Presiding Judge Fahmi Mounir why she waited to be raped several times to report about him the maid alleged she knew nobody and that she was scared.

Asked by the judge whether she resisted, the maid said she could not as he would overpower her with beating and hair pulling.

The Ethiopian consulate reported the rape to the police after the Ethiopian woman sought their help.

At the Qusais police station, the Palestinian reportedly admitted to ?having consensual sex with the housemaid. “He said that he wanted to settle the problem amicably with the housemaid as he had two women and ?occupying a reputable post in a company. He said he was ready to marry her or offer her money,” a police lieutenant stated.

Source:- Khaleej Times