Blind justice: Release of three assailants of underage girl in Tripoli!

Despite wide popular condemnations of the sexual assault against the underage girl (16 years) from Tripoli and notwithstanding the full backing in court of the victim’s case as pledged by the president of the Tripoli Bar Association (c.f. http://bit.ly/29WT4wy), the acting investigative judge of the North, Naji Dahdah, exonerated the three young culprits releasing them without bail. Dahdah in his accusatory order, published in As Safir newspaper, considered that the three men “had sex with the underage girl with her full consent,”. The judge has based his decision on the Third Paragraph of Article 505 of the Penal Code, which supports the punishment with imprisonment from 2 months to two years of any party that has sexual intercourse with an underage child who completed 15 years and has not reached 18 years. According to the ruling, and based on charges against the aunt of the underage girl and which was filed by the lawyers of the indictees for incitement of taking legal action against them on charges of rape under the threat of killing her grandfather and post pictures of her, constitutes, according to the decision, a crime stipulated by Article 403/217 of the Penal Code. As such, the lawyer of one of the plaintiffs, Mohammad Khansa, gave preponderance to arrest the aunt. The ruling has instigated concerns of human rights activists and jurists who feared that referring the felony to Article 505, hence considering what happened as a sexual intercourse with consent, could be a prelude to accuse the minor of prostitution later on. (As Safir, Al Diyar, August 5, 2016)

 

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Despicable sexual assault on a girl minor from Tripoli with media complicity