A South African man and his Ukrainian fiancee have been detained in the United Arab Emirates for unlawful sex, a relative says.<\/p>\n
Emlyn Culverwell\u201a 29, and Iryna Nohai, 27, were reportedly arrested after a doctor discovered Ms Nohai, who had stomach cramps, was pregnant.<\/p>\n
They were arrested for sex outside of marriage, which is illegal in the UAE.<\/p>\n
Mr Culverwell’s mother has pleaded for their release, saying “the only thing they did wrong was fall in love”.<\/p>\n
South Africa’s foreign ministry has said that it is not able to help the couple as this is a matter of domestic UAE law, News24 reports.<\/p>\n
The South African government has advised the couple to get legal assistance, the BBC’s Pumza Fihlani in Johannesburg says.<\/p>\n
There was no immediate comment from the UAE government.<\/p>\n
Mr Culverwell and Ms Nohai have reportedly been held since January, but news of their detention has only emerged now.<\/p>\n
Mr Culverwell has been working in the UAE for the past five years.<\/p>\n
His mother Linda told News24 that the family is “trying to get messages to the two to say we love them and that they shouldn’t be worried”.<\/p>\n
The couple have not yet been charged as the authorities are still carrying out tests, Mrs Culverwell added.<\/p>\n
If found guilty, they could face a long jail sentence.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A South African man and his Ukrainian fiancee have been detained in the United Arab Emirates for unlawful sex, a relative says. Emlyn Culverwell\u201a 29, and Iryna Nohai, 27, were reportedly arrested after a doctor discovered Ms Nohai, who had stomach cramps, was pregnant. They were arrested for sex outside of marriage, which is illegal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-300499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=300499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=300499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=300499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=300499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}