Drunk 'drags woman from lift in rape attempt'

DUBAI // A drunken man dragged a woman from a lift and forced her into an apartment to rape her but she was saved by the ring of a doorbell, a court heard today.

S M, 40, Filipina, told prosecutors that on February 3, after visiting her friend in Boulevard City Suites in Al Qusais, the Emirati defendant A J, 26, got into the lift with her.

When the lift stopped on the seventh floor, A J put his hand on her shoulder.

"No, no," said S M, but A J grabbed her around the waist and dragged her into a corridor to an apartment.

"He knocked on the door and another man opened, then he pushed me inside," S M said, according to prosecutors' records.

Frightened, she begged A J to let her go and continued screaming in an attempt to attract attention. "He made a sign on his neck implying that he would cut my throat if I continued screaming," S M said.

The doorbell rang and when the defendant opened the door, S M rushed outside and climbed down a stairwell from the seventh floor, screaming.

"The staircase was dark and I was scared and hysterical," she said.

A J denied the charge of attempted rape, kidnap and consumption of alcohol.

Prosecutors said A J had consumed five glasses of whisky before the alleged incident.

A B, a 24-year-old Indian accountant, testified that he was with the defendant and a number of women at the hotel in Al Qusais consuming alcohol.

"A dispute erupted between A J and another man and shortly after I heard a woman screaming: "Don't kill me, I don't want to die", A B told prosecutors.

A B said he saw the woman running outside the flat when the defendant opened the door for his Moroccan girlfriend.

S M reported the incident to police a week after it happened, and they extracted surveillance camera recordings that showed a man dragging a woman from the lift and through the corridor.

Prosecutors said A J had confessed only to holding the woman's hand while drunk.

The next hearing will be on May 27.

salamir@thenational.ae