DUBAI // A man who posed as a policeman before kidnapping and raping a university student has been sentenced to ten years in prison.
AM, 26, an Emirati, found the student in a car with a male friend and threatened to report them, identifying himself as a police officer. But when he lured the student away from her friend and into his car he locked the doors and raped her on the back seat.
Prosecutors told the Criminal Court the student, 19, had gone to meet her friend at about 4pm on January 2 this year. She got in to his car and the pair waited for their tea to be delivered.
"The defendant knocked on my window, and asked us what we were doing and we said we weren't doing anything wrong," recalled her friend.
The man then started talking on his phone, pretending he was in contact with police colleagues and that he was reporting the young couple.
The student tried to calm him down and asked him not to make a big deal out of the matter, emphasising that the pair had done nothing wrong. The man then told her to go home.
She got into her own car, a Toyota Yaris, and drove down Al Ittihad Road in the direction of her home, but noticed the man driving next to her, flagging her down.
"He asked me to head to a nearby car park because he wanted to take my testimony," recalled the student.
The man then jumped into her car and began asking her about her relationship with her male friend. He then returned to his car and asked her to join him to sign a written testimony.
"When I refused, he threatened to call my mother so I got into his car," said the student.
After she climbed in he locked the doors and forced her to the back seat.
"I felt he was going to hurt me so I begged him to let me go as I cried so hard but he didn't listen, he was talking about how I should enjoy it as he played with my hair," she recalled.
He then raped her.
Afterwards he took her number and told her he would call her, saying they could be friends.
After the attack she told her male friend about what happened. She then went with her sister and mother to Muraqqabat police station to report the matter.
AM was arrested at his house at 3am the next day.
In court, he denied charges of rape, kidnap and impersonation of an officer. A forensics report found traces of his DNA on the student's body.
salamir@thenational.ae
