There's a disturbing example of the way the legal system can be administered, reported by Gulf News yesterday.
If the story is correct, not for the first time the victim reporting a crime has spent time in Al Slammer.
In summary, when meeting friends at a hotel a young German woman was offered sweets. She felt dizzy and uncomfortable immediately after she ate a sweet and blood tests confirmed she'd been given a drug.
She reported the incident to police, who set up a sting operation which resulted in a man being punished and deported.
All witnesses and law enforcement officers confirmed that she was the one who reported the matter to the police. Forensic doctors confirmed that the drugs which appeared in her blood could have resulted from the sweet she ate.
On Thursday she appeared in court after five months in jail.
After five months in jail.
You have to ask why she was in jail in the first place and why it took five months to get the case to court.
There've been similar cases in the past which have attracted scathing criticism in international media, and rightly so.
On every level it's absolutely the wrong thing to do.
On a moral level it's indefensible to lock up a victim.
It can't be right to keep someone in jail for five months before bringing them to court.
It's counter-productive in the fight against crime. People won't report crime for fear they'll be jailed themselves.
It further harms Dubai's reputation, already under sustained attack by sections of the western media.
And still she's not free. The woman was released on bail, had to surrender her passport and, as the report says, the trial continues.
Gulf News has the full court report here.
