DUBAI // A 48-year-old Arab man repeatedly raped and beat his 22-year-old Ethiopian maid over four months, a court heard.
In a written affidavit presented to the Dubai Court of Cassation by the Public Prosecutor's Office on Sunday, the maid's ordeal was described in graphic detail.
It tells of her numerous attempts to seek help from the company she worked for, only to be accused of fabricating her story to return to her home country.
According to the affidavit, made available to the media yesterday, the woman, identified as FH, arrived in the UAE six months ago after being hired by an Ajman company that provides domestic helpers to families.
The company assigned her to the defendant, identified as AB, who has an apartment in Dubai, where he lives alone, and a home in Abu Dhabi that he shares with his wife and seven children.
According to her statement, the day she was first dropped off at the Dubai apartment, he told her to sit on his thigh to look at photos of his children on his mobile phone.
When she refused, he is accused of forcing her to. He then asked whether they could sleep together, and when she refused, he drove her to Abu Dhabi to meet his wife and family and to begin working.
AB brought the maid to Dubai a month later to finalise her residency permit. The maid said that after returning from the medical check-up, she was in the living room when AB called her to his bedroom. There she found him wearing only an undershirt and boxer shorts.
He is accused of demanding that she undress, and when she refused, grabbing her by the hair, slapping her face several times, removing her clothes and raping her. In her statement, the maid said she was afraid to scream for help because she thought he would beat her some more.
AB drove her back to Abu Dhabi that day.
A month later, he brought FH back to Dubai, telling her he would open a bank account for her, but beat and raped her again, the charges say. The next day he drove her back to Abu Dhabi.
Three months later AB brought the maid, his wife and seven children to Dubai.
The morning after their arrival in Dubai, the defendant took his wife and children to the mall, where he left them, then returned to the apartment alone and beat and raped FH, the charges say. Afterward, he went to the mall and brought his family back to the apartment.
When the family returned to Abu Dhabi and AB was alone in Dubai, FH called the maid service office in Ajman to report what had been happening to her. According to the affidavit, the female owner of the office shouted at FH, accused her of fabricating the story to return to her country, then hung up on her.
A month later, AB told the woman that he was firing her, and that she would be going home. She packed up her belongings and was taken to the Dubai apartment. While there, the defendant began drinking alcohol, then beat and raped her again, the charges say.
FH eventually contacted the Ethiopian Embassy, which called the Dubai Police.
Investigators later arrested AB.
He told the court that he did slap the maid lightly a few times, but that any relations between them were consensual. He added that he loved FH and intended to marry her.
AB remains in police custody; the next court hearing is scheduled for Monday.
ealghalib@thenational.ae
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Rafia Zakaria
Bloomsbury Academic
INFO
Everton 0
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Man of the Match: Djibril Sidibe (Everton)
THREE
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Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: BorrowMe (BorrowMe.com)
Date started: August 2021
Founder: Nour Sabri
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: E-commerce / Marketplace
Size: Two employees
Funding stage: Seed investment
Initial investment: $200,000
Investors: Amr Manaa (director, PwC Middle East)
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- loss of confidence and appetite
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- persistent physical ailments such as headaches, frequent infections and fatigue
- substance abuse, such as smoking or drinking more
- impaired judgement
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Tips to help overcome burnout
Acknowledge how you are feeling by listening to your warning signs. Set boundaries and learn to say ‘no’
Do activities that you want to do as well as things you have to do
Undertake at least 30 minutes of exercise per day. It releases an abundance of feel-good hormones
Find your form of relaxation and make time for it each day e.g. soothing music, reading or mindful meditation
Sleep and wake at the same time every day, even if your sleep pattern was disrupted. Without enough sleep condition such as stress, anxiety and depression can thrive.
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Karwaan
Producer: Ronnie Screwvala
Director: Akarsh Khurana
Starring: Irrfan Khan, Dulquer Salmaan, Mithila Palkar
Rating: 4/5
Disability on screen
Empire — neuromuscular disease myasthenia gravis; bipolar disorder; post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Rosewood and Transparent — heart issues
24: Legacy — PTSD;
Superstore and NCIS: New Orleans — wheelchair-bound
Taken and This Is Us — cancer
Trial & Error — cognitive disorder prosopagnosia (facial blindness and dyslexia)
Grey’s Anatomy — prosthetic leg
Scorpion — obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety
Switched at Birth — deafness
One Mississippi, Wentworth and Transparent — double mastectomy
Dragons — double amputee
Company profile
Company: Rent Your Wardrobe
Date started: May 2021
Founder: Mamta Arora
Based: Dubai
Sector: Clothes rental subscription
Stage: Bootstrapped, self-funded
How much sugar is in chocolate Easter eggs?
- The 169g Crunchie egg has 15.9g of sugar per 25g serving, working out at around 107g of sugar per egg
- The 190g Maltesers Teasers egg contains 58g of sugar per 100g for the egg and 19.6g of sugar in each of the two Teasers bars that come with it
- The 188g Smarties egg has 113g of sugar per egg and 22.8g in the tube of Smarties it contains
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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”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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