Trio sentenced to three years in jail for kidnapping and rape

Abu Dhabi: A court in the capital sentenced three men charged with kidnapping and raping a woman to three years in jail.

A female compatriot, S.A., who was charged with pushing the victim into prostitution because she had assisted the men in the kidnapping, was sentenced to one month in prison.

The presiding judge at the Abu Dhabi Criminal Court of First Instance, ordered that the defendants, who are of Bangladeshi origin, be deported after serving their jail terms.

At an earlier hearing, the court heard that the men, M.M., J.A. and N.B., kidnapped their victim, H.H., also a Bangladeshi.

They imprisoned her at an unspecified location in Bani Yas and took turns to rape her repeatedly over two days.

When Chief Justice Syed Abdul Bashir, Head of the Criminal Court at the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department, questioned the defendants, they denied the charges but confessed to committing adultery with the victim.

The defendants' lawyer had argued that the men only met the victim with her consent, and that they were therefore not guilty of kidnapping or imprisoning her.