Dubai: A court has reduced the seven-year imprisonment of a young man who was charged with rape, to three years in jail after his lawyer maintained that "his client didn't rape the victim".
The Dubai Court of Appeal on Thursday reduced the initial verdict, seven years in jail, to three years.
The Dubai Court of First Instance earlier convicted the 18-year-old Emirati, S.K., and 20-year-old Iraqi, W.F., with kidnapping and repeatedly raping the 18-year-old Emirati girl, who reports said had fled her parents' home.
S.K.'s lawyers Jasem and Yasser Al Naqbi, of Excel Advocates and Legal Consultants, sought a reduced term for their client because of his young age.
They also stated before the Appeal Court that the victim had earlier been convicted of having consensual sex in another case.
Appeal
Yasser Al Naqbi on Thursday told Gulf News that they will appeal to the Cassation Court to reduce the punishment 'because it was consensual sex and not rape'.
The advocates said in their defence which they submitted to Presiding Judge Adnan Al Farra: "Our client is innocent ... he didn't kidnap or rape the girl. She lodged a malicious complaint and her statement was inconsistent. She claimed that she is not a virgin and the medical report proved the opposite. Records showed that she left her family's house two days prior to the incident ... is it possible or logical for a girl her age to spend two days away from her parents' house?"
The court of cassation had overturned the initial rulings and ordered the appeal court to hold a retrial. An imam found the girl when she took shelter in the men's washroom at a mosque in Al Warqa.
