DUBAI // A manager who was accused of insulting an employee because she refused to work on weekends has been acquitted.
Pakistani A A, 58 denied he had verbally assaulted his compatriot, T A, 31, at the Dubai Court of Misdemeanours this week.
T A told the court that on April 5 last year her boss gave her work-related papers and demanded that she sign them without reading them.
“When I refused, he started calling me inappropriate names and threatened to cancel my residency and send me back to Pakistan, then pushed me aside and ordered that I get out of the office,” she said.
She said A A would call her on Friday mornings and demand that she make him breakfast and bring it to the office.
“I told him ‘no, I won’t do it’, so he punished me by deducting from my salary and yelling at me,” she said.
“He also called my family back in Pakistan and threatened them that if I don’t obey his orders, he will fire me and send me back to them.”
T A said her problems grew worse when a colleague repeatedly asked her to go out with him, but she turned him down. She said he then started harassing on the phone her late at night.
A colleague, Pakistani S A 36, testified that he heard the manager shouting at T A.
“He was warning her about work, that she was behind schedule, and started calling her names, then he pushed her and told her to leave the office,” he said.
“I sometimes call my employees on Fridays, sometimes the business demands that the employees work on weekends,” said A A during investigations.
The court found him not guilty.
salamir@thenational.ae
