Sheikh Falah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan better mark his calendar, because he's due in court on May 8th.

The sheikh - whose brother happens to be president of the United Arab Emirates - stands accused of assaulting American national Silvano Orsi last year in Geneva.

Orsi alleges that Falah attempted to woo him with champagne, which Orsi doesn't drink, and then became enraged when the American rebuffed his royal advances. Rather than walking away, says Orsi, Falah went ape shit and started whipping him with a belt. As if that's not reasonable! He is, after all, a sultan!

Judges from the United Arab Emirates have reached a decision in the trial of two men accused of raping a French teenager:

The two men, ages 35 and 18, had been charged with “kidnapping with deceit” and “forced homosexual relations,” a charge that can be punished with life imprisonment or death.

The judges did not state specifically what each defendant was convicted of, in line with the confidentiality clauses in Dubai’s court system.

Neither the men nor the boy were present at the sentencing.

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The United Arab Emirates took another gay hit today. Just yesterday we wrote on the disturbing tale of how the federation's government allegedly attempted to cover up a French teen's rape. Today, SLOG passes on this 365Gay story:

Swiss officials announced Wednesday they will try the brother of the ruler of the United Arab Emirates for allegedly assaulting an American man who rebuffed his sexual advances in a Geneva hotel.

Sheikh Falah bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, 37, is accused of attacking Silvano Orsi, 39, with a belt in the posh La Reserve hotel four years ago.
…
Orsi said he was sipping fruit juice while chatting in English and Italian with a Saudi friend in the bar at the hotel when a passer-by dressed in casual shirt and jeans asked where he was from. The stranger offered him something to drink and Orsi declined, saying he didn't drink alcohol, yet the man soon sent over a bottle of Dom Perignon. Orsi said he politely waved his thanks…

A quarter-hour later, Orsi alleged, the man suddenly came up behind him, jostled his glasses, sat in his lap and tried to kiss and fondle him. When Orsi protested, he maintained the man became violently angry, threw him to the floor, punched and stomped him, smashed his glasses underfoot, then removed his belt and whipped him with the metal buckle.

All the time, Orsi said his attacker was yelling abuse, saying at one point that "no stupid American or Italian is going to tell me what to do!"

A Swiss jury, however, may sentence the Sheikh to two years in prison.

[Note: Our original headline named Orsi as a gay. In fact, Orsi's a proud heterosexual. He does, however, tell us he fully supports gay rights. We'll be getting more on the story next week. Keep your pretty peepers peeled!]

• We promise that once you start, you won’t be able to stop playing this game. Forget solitaire, “Let’s Go Cruisin’ With Lee Tamahori” might just be the computer game that gets you fired from your office job. [Secondsphere via Defamer]

• The next cycle of America’s Next Top Model doesn’t begin until next month. Until then we have America’s Top Cock. [Ruff And Hot]

• There was enough homoeroticism in A Rebel Without A Cause without a kiss between James Dean and Sal Mineo. Still a little guy on guy lip action would have been really, really hot. [Queer Day]

• We don’t see what the big deal with gay kisses is in the first place. [NBC]

• Brokeback Mountain has been banned in United Arab Emirates which means new resident Michael Jackson is out of luck if he wants to take in a showing. [Gay.com]

Last week in the United Arab Emirates, in a hotel along the Dubai-Abu Dhabi highway, two dozen gays decided to go for it. They were in the middle of celebrating a communal wedding ceremony, twelve dressed as female brides, twelve as male bridegrooms, when the police stormed the joint and arrested them. Homosexuality is illegal in the UAE; the captured men are to be punished with fines, imprisonment, and forced male hormone injections.

The UAE government announced that is was giving details of the incident to show that it will not tolerate homosexuality. Mohammed bn Nukhaira Al Dhahiri, the Minister of Justice and Islamic affairs told parents they must be alert to “deviant” behavior in their offspring. This event is one in a series of mass arrests of gays in the UAE.

That the UAE is going to punish these gay men by forcing male hormones into their systems shows how little the UAE understands homosexuality. Some of the studliest, most he-man males are gay, gay, gay. And on the other hand, some men, who by their own admission are heterosexual, are as feminine as Michael Jackson, currently residing in Dubai.