Manama: A court of appeals in Saudi Arabia has rejected a court ruling to sentence a man to seven months in jail and to 200 lashes for abusing and blackmailing a 13-year-old girl.
A lower court in the Red Sea city of Jeddah issued the verdict after it heard from the girl that the man whom she had met at a shopping mall six months earlier lured and assaulted her. He also took pictures of her in compromising positions and told her he would post them on social networks of she did not give him money.
The girl, wary he would go ahead with the threats, stole money from her father, a businessman, and handed him a total of SR265,000, local daily Al Watan reported.
A source told the daily that the father found out that the money was missing and upon questioning his daughter, she told him the whole story.
The father reported the case to the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice who arrested the blackmailer.
The 28-year-old suspect admitted, during the interrogation, the girl’s accusations against him and a court later sentenced him to jail and to lashes.
It also ordered the deletion of all the pictures and clips stored in his mobile.
However, the verdict, seen as too lenient, was appealed.
“The ruling for assaulting a minor is at least four years, lashes and a fine,” the source said. “This is the reason that prompted the court of appeals to reject the ruling by the lower court and to ask the judges to review their decision,” he added.
Online comments supported the decision to review the verdict, saying that the seven-month sentence was in fact a picnic for the aggressor and blackmailer.
