An 18-year-old British man has been jailed for a year after he had sex with a 17-year-old Londoner he met in Dubai.
According to Detained in Dubai, Marcus Fakana, from Tottenham, was given the one year sentence after he was arrested in his family’s hotel in the UAE.
He was on a getaway with his family when a secret ‘holiday romance blossomed’ with the girl, who is now 18.
The girl’s mum filed a complaint to the Dubai authorities after her family returned to the UK.
He previously told the Detained in Dubai human rights group: ‘We really liked each other but she was secretive with her family because they were strict. My parents knew about our relationship but she couldn’t tell hers. She had to meet me without telling them it was to see a boy.’
But the girl flew back home in August, police showed up at Marcus’ family’s hotel and took the teen into custody.
‘I couldn’t imagine what for. I was frightened and my parents were terrified,’ Marcus said.
Radha Stirling, CEO of Detained in Dubai told the Mail: ‘Marcus did plead guilty, but police and prosecutors had a disturbing litany of details in his file which ended up making it more than a misdemeanour and heard in a higher court.
‘They said he was older than 19 and he was from Pakistan. He was a British citizen. There were a lot errors deliberately to torment him.’
She added on X: ‘Marcus feels abandoned by the British government and Keir Starmer who just spent the weekend in the UAE.
‘Marcus will appeal his sentence but has already been held in Dubai since September and now has a one year sentence to face.
‘He was desperately hoping to come home this week but prosecutorial mishandling in the first stages of the case meant it wasn’t heard as a misdemeanour when it should have been.’
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The UAE’s laws are based on Islamic law, or Shariah. While the Arab country has relaxed laws in recent years to attract tourists, investment and ease its conservative reputation, Stirling says its legal code is still ‘strict’.
Another British man, Ryan Cornelius, has been in a Dubai prison for 16 years. He initially served his ten year sentence, but courts in the UAE extended it by 20 years in 2018, meaning he won’t be eligible for release until 2038.
Ryan’s family have also raised concerns over the lack of government involvement in working to free him, claiming that when Foreign Secretary David Lammy made one of his early visits to the UAE, he ‘didn’t even raise Ryan’s case’.
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