A 30-year-old Nigerian salesman has been jailed for 10 years by a court in the United Arab Emirates for raping a British teacher in her flat in Dubai in the early hours of New Year’s Day.
The tipsy victim had just returned home from a party.
Under local laws, the convict was not identified.
The 32-year-old woman arrived back at her apartment near the Silicon Oasis at 3am and saw the man standing near the lift of the building.
She told the police he asked her which floor she lived on.
“At first I thought he was a tenant,” she said.
“I was surprised and questioned his reasons. He said he followed me to make sure I was fine, I told him to stop and leave.”
She said he followed her to her flat, pushed her inside, ripped off her clothes and raped her on her bed.
The woman, who is believed to have since left Dubai, said: “I resisted him hard but failed to stop him. He and I were pulling the bathroom door but then he stopped and when I checked, I found that he was gone.”
She contacted the police and the suspect was soon identified.
A policeman told the court: “He told us that he was visiting one of his friends in the same building but didn’t find him and that as he was leaving the building, he met the woman near the lift and she was drunk.”
The man admitted having sex with the teacher but claimed it was consensual.
But he was convicted at Dubai Criminal Court and will be deported back to Nigeria after serving his prison term.
There are around 250,000 British expats in Dubai, mainly working in teaching, tourism, finance and the oil industry.
Crime is generally very low.
The Silicon Oasis is an enterprise zone for IT companies to the east of downtown Dubai.
Yoruba man