Three men who were convicted of repeatedly raping an 11-year-old girl in Morocco have had their sentences increased by a court. The men were originally handed sentences of between one-and-a-half and two years, but the appeals court has now given one of them a 20-year jail sentence and the other two were sentenced to ten years in prison.
The court also ordered the men to pay damages of 140,000 dirhams, which is almost $14,000. The lower court had ordered the men to pay just 50,000 dirhams.
The case had caused outrage in Morocco and the decision by the appeals court was welcomed by the victim’s lawyer, Abdelfattah Zahrach. However, he expressed concern that two of the men had been given a ten-year sentence instead of a longer one. He is considering making another appeal to the Court of Cassation, after consulting with the victim’s family.
The prosecution had requested that the charges of ‘misappropriation of a minor’ and ‘indecent assault on a minor with violence’ be increased to include ‘rape,’ but the judge rejected this. During the hearing, which lasted for several hours, the victim and a witness testified in private, at the request of the prosecution.
The public gallery was packed and the victim was accompanied by her father and grandmother.
The defendants, who had hung their heads in the dock during the trial, were presented with DNA evidence which proved that one of the men was the father of a child born to the victim, who is now 13 months old. The men were convicted of ‘indecent assault’ and the charges related to the abuse of a minor.
The court decided that the increase in sentence was necessary to ensure justice was served.
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