DUBAI // A man raped his friend’s nine-year-old son then threatened to decapitate him if he told anyone, a court heard today.
The child was visiting his father’s cafe when driver S?A, 36, abducted him, took him to the desert and raped him, prosecutors told the Criminal Court.
When the boy tried to escape, the accused covered his trousers with red food colouring to disguise the blood stains from his attack. He then threatened to chop the boy’s head off.
The attack happened on March 15 when the boy left his home in International City and went to his father’s cafe to collect soup for his mother.
He met the driver, an Afghani friend of his father, and went with him to a market, where the man bought the food colouring.
The driver then took the boy to an area of desert and raped him.
Afterwards, the boy tried to run away but fell.
“He chased me in his car. When I fell and hurt my leg he caught me and shoved me in his car, then sprayed some of the colouring powder on my trousers to cover the blood stains and threatened to cut off my head if I told anyone about what he had done,” the boy said.
When he finally returned home his mother became suspicious.
“He hugged me so tight and woke me up,” she said. “I was surprised because it was the first time he had done this in a long time and it made me feel something bad happened.”
She saw the blood on his trousers. He said some of it was blood from a fall and some was food colouring that had spilt on him when he was at the cafe.
But the mother did not believe him and told her husband.
“I asked my son about the blood stains and he was too scared to tell me, so I yelled at him. Then he said, ‘he will kill me’,” the father said. “I asked him, ‘who would kill you?’ He told me the whole story.”
The father, also from Afghanistan, confronted the driver the next day. A worker at the cafe who saw the confrontation, Afghani S?W, 24, said the father gave the driver his passport and told him to leave the country.
“The father said he would settle the matter with him in Afghanistan,” the worker said.
The men began fighting and police were called. The father reported the attack on his son.
The driver was charged with rape, issuing threats to kill and assault. At the Criminal Court he denied rape and making threats but admitted assaulting the father.
The case was adjourned until July 15.
salamir@thenational.ae
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