Abu Dhabi: A 14-year-old girl in the capital who was sentenced to six months in prison and deportation on a charge of consensual sex appeared at the second hearing of her appeal at the Abu Dhabi Court of Appeals Wednesday.
The girl, who is of Brazilian origin, was sentenced last month by the Abu Dhabi Criminal Court of First Instance for having sexual relations with a 25-year-old bus driver from Pakistan.
As part of the same case, the driver was also sentenced to a year in jail, followed by deportation.
At a previous hearing earlier this month, the Court of Appeals ordered a lawyer to be assigned to the driver.
Wednesday's hearing was however closed to the public, and everyone except the accused, their lawyers and families, was asked to leave by the presiding judge.
The case initially came to light when the girl's father accused the driver of raping his daughter.
Court investigators however found that the girl had personally been in contact with the driver before the alleged rape occurred, and that she had been sending him intimate texts and pictures for a period of time.
The head of the criminal justice section and the presiding judge at the Court of First Instance hearings, Chief Justice Saeed Abdul Bashir, told Gulf News before the initial verdict that the girl was charged for consensual sex because she had already reached the age of puberty and had been in touch with the driver before the act occurred.
