Dubai: A worker has been cleared of kissing a 13-year-old boy while performing ablution outside a mosque and then forcing him into the washroom and kissing him again in Jumeirah.

The 13-year-old French boy and his mother were holidaying in Dubai when they visited a landmark mosque in Jumeirah to offer the afternoon prayers in April.

The Frenchwoman asked the three workers for directions to the prayer section for women, according to records, while her son headed to the area to perform ablution.

On Wednesday, the Dubai Court of First Instance acquitted the 29-year-old Pakistani worker of kissing the boy against his will due to lack of corroborated evidence.

When the worker showed up in court, he argued before presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi that he planted a friendly kiss on the boy’s cheeks. He claimed he did not kiss him on his lips or have any criminal intent.

Records said the man kissed the boy in the ablution area, firstly, then made the boy go to the washroom where he kissed him a second time. The 13-year-old got irritated, pushed him away and ran out of the mosque looking for his mother.

The boy told his mother about the incident and she called the police.

The footage of the surveillance cameras clearly showed that how the worker asked the boy to follow him and then they were out of the camera’s view. The footage then showed the boy running out of the washroom.

In court, the worker refuted prosecutors’ accusation that he had molested the minor.

The boy was cited telling prosecutors that after he had performed ablution, the suspect kissed him but he did not object thinking it was a normal thing, but then he tried to grab him.

“When he forced himself on me ... I pushed him and walked away from him,” the boy told prosecutors.

The mother told the prosecutors that she visited the mosque with her son to pray at 2.50pm when the incident happened.

“I went to pray and five minutes later, my son stormed into the women’s section of the mosque and told me that the suspect had kissed him twice. When we went outside, the suspect had already gone,” she said.

A police sergeant said the suspect was apprehended three days later at the Jumeirah Open Beach.

Wednesday’s ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.