DUBAI // A drunk expatriate jumped fully clothed into a beach club swimming pool before climbing back out, groping a waitress and swearing at her, a court heard today.
OR, a 44-year-old general manager from Denmark, arrived at the XL Beach Club on Al Sufouh Road with a three friends on the evening of June 8 this year. Staff at the club noticed they were drunk.
"According to orders, customers who come to us drunk are put under surveillance, so I watched them," said the club's security guard AP, a 32-year-old from India.
The guard said the men sat at a table but were asked to leave by a waitress. "When they did [OR] headed towards the swimming pool and jumped in fully clothed."
He said that following the man's dip the group returned and tried once more to sit at a table, but that the manager of the club and a waitress came to talk to them.
The waitress, a 29-year-old from Macedonia, explained to the men that tables needed to be booked in advance. However, when she did so, the man who had jumped in the pool suddenly groped her. "He then told me f*** you," said the waitress. She screamed and the security guard ejected the men from the club.
Prosecutors told the Criminal Court that footage from the club's security camera showed the man groping the waitress.
The man denied charges of sex assault and issuing insults but admitted consuming alcohol.
The next hearing was scheduled for December 5.
salamir@thenational.ae
Building boom turning to bust as Turkey's economy slows
Deep in a provincial region of northwestern Turkey, it looks like a mirage - hundreds of luxury houses built in neat rows, their pointed towers somewhere between French chateau and Disney castle.
Meant to provide luxurious accommodations for foreign buyers, the houses are however standing empty in what is anything but a fairytale for their investors.
The ambitious development has been hit by regional turmoil as well as the slump in the Turkish construction industry - a key sector - as the country's economy heads towards what could be a hard landing in an intensifying downturn.
After a long period of solid growth, Turkey's economy contracted 1.1 per cent in the third quarter, and many economists expect it will enter into recession this year.
The country has been hit by high inflation and a currency crisis in August. The lira lost 28 per cent of its value against the dollar in 2018 and markets are still unconvinced by the readiness of the government under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to tackle underlying economic issues.
The villas close to the town centre of Mudurnu in the Bolu region are intended to resemble European architecture and are part of the Sarot Group's Burj Al Babas project.
But the development of 732 villas and a shopping centre - which began in 2014 - is now in limbo as Sarot Group has sought bankruptcy protection.
It is one of hundreds of Turkish companies that have done so as they seek cover from creditors and to restructure their debts.
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Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
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TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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Are non-fungible tokens a currency, asset, or a licensing instrument? Arnab Das, global market strategist EMEA at Invesco, says they are mix of all of three.
You can buy, hold and use NFTs just like US dollars and Bitcoins. “They can appreciate in value and even produce cash flows.”
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A foster couple or family must:
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