Foreign national sentenced to 7 years in prison for molesting minor

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation has upheld a June 2021 Criminal Court ruling, sentencing a Yemeni national to seven years in prison after convicting him of molesting a boy in one of the governorates in June 2021. 

The court declared the defendant guilty of molestation and blackmail charges against a 13-year-old boy in early June and handed him the maximum sentence.

Court papers said the victim went to a shop where the defendant worked and the latter attempted to harass him.

“The defendant managed to get the teenager’s social media account and he started corresponding with him," court transcripts said.

The defendant claimed that “he had an inappropriate photo belonging to the victim’s mother,” according to court documents.

“The defendant told the victim that he planned to publish the photo on social media unless the teenager would send him a video showing him naked,” the court papers added.

The victim panicked and adhered to the defendant’s demands and sent a video clip, the court papers added.

The defendant then asked the boy to “engage in sexual activities with him and that if he refused, he planned to post his video on social media”, the court stated.

The victim informed his family who filed a complaint at the Family Protection Department.

The Criminal Court’s attorney general asked the higher court to uphold the sentence against the defendant "because the punishment he received was proper".

The higher court ruled that the Criminal Court proceedings were accurate and that the defendant was given the appropriate punishment.

The Court of Cassation judges were Mohammad Ibrahim, Majid Azab, Fawzi Nahar, Hayel Amr and Ibrahim Abu Shamma.