Couple held for adultery end up getting married

A Filipina, who had asked the court to let her marry her Emirati partner in a previous hearing, on Wednesday appeared in the court along with him wearing an abaya, with her head and face covered, as she had got married to him.
 
MPB, 22, saleslady, and JAA, 23, jobless Emirati, were involved in an illegal relationship since 2006 and had a one-and-a-half year old son.
 
In the previous hearing, when MPB was asked by presiding judge Ibrahim Khalil Abu Shamma what does she want from the court after the two admitted to adultery, the woman said: “I want to marry him.”
 
However, JAA’s lawyer had asked the court for time to prepare his defence.
 
Instead of hearing a defence by JAA’s lawyer, the couple entered the hall room together and once their names were called, they stood before the jury and presented a recent marriage certificate.
 
According to the prosecution charge sheet, JAA had met MPB in the garment shop in Al Satwa where she used to work and their telephone calls developed into dating and then into an illegitimate relationship in 2006.
 
The woman got pregnant and her partner advised her to abort the foetus. The woman rejected this and sought marriage instead.
 
The man, however, started avoiding her and refrained from answering her phone calls.
 
When she was in her ninth month of pregnancy she sent him an SMS threatening him with notifying police. So JAA sent her Dh6,000 to help her pay the cost of delivery.

A month after having the baby, the man came with a request that he wanted to see his son. The relationship resumed, she told the prosecution.
 
On June 23, the woman was arrested from her accommodation in Satwa following a tip-off to authorities about the presence of residency law violators in the house where she stays with her son.
 
When asked about her son, she told the police that he was the result of an illicit relationship with an Emirati, who was arrested later.
 
The woman was referred to Dubai Public Prosecution on charges of illegitimate pregnancy, adultery and overstaying in the country.