A woman has been fined and faces deportation after a court in the United Arab Emirates convicted her of reading texts on her husband’s phone.
The unnamed woman, an Arab expatriate living with her husband in the UAE, accused her partner of cheating after looking at his conversations and sent illicit photos from his phone to hers via Whatsapp to use as evidence.
The husband reacted by immediately reporting her to the police. His wife was handed a £28,000 fine and faces expulsion from the country, according to a local news report on Gulf News.
The court in Ajman, a provincial capital near Dubai, prosecuted her under cybercrime laws which prohibit the transfer of photos or "electronic information" without the owner's permission.
The 2012 Federal Decree-Law No. 5 stipulates that accessing someone else’s phone carries “a prison sentence of at least six months”, but the court decided deportation was the more appropriate punishment.
Gulf News reports that the woman admitted to the charges and was convicted on 12 May. It is unclear whether she has already been deported.
The wife’s lawyer Eman Sabt reported that both husband and wife were in their thirties.
Women in nearby Saudi Arabia face flogging and imprisonment if they check their husband’s phone without permission, as reported by The Independent last week.
A senior lawyer confirmed the offence would be prosecuted as a violation of privacy because it is not covered in the country’s Islamic laws.
