Picture used for illustrative purpose only.

Mohammed Yaseen, Staff Reporter

The Dubai Court of Appeal upheld a verdict issued by the Court of First Instance sentencing an Arab to three months in jail to be followed by deportation after being convicted of blackmailing his ex-wife with photos and video clips showing her in indecent clothes that he kept while they were married.

The defendant threatened to post the victim’s photos and video clips through a fake account on Facebook and demanded her to pay him $10,000 in return for not posting what he had to her family and friends.

The court also ordered that the defendant’s mobile phone be confiscated.

The case dates back to last October when an Arab woman received messages from a Facebook account of an anonymous man in which he demanded her to pay him $10,000 in return for not posting her photos that he obtained from a mobile phone he found.

The victim said she received some photos and video clips showing her in indecent clothes and tried to speak with the anonymous man, who kept blackmailing her through threats.

The victim added that after the anonymous account holder sent some photos and video clips to a number of her family members and friends through Facebook and after some of her photos were received through WhatsApp, she discovered that the anonymous man was only her ex-husband, who separated from her in 2018.

Following their divorce, the ex-husband took her mobile phone, which contained her private photos and seized her phone, she said, noting that she reported the incident to the police accordingly.

According to official documents, a team of detectives summoned the suspect accused, who denied that he had anything to do with what happened. However, further investigations and the forensic lab report proved that he was involved in blackmailing through a fake account and numbers that belonged to him.