Cassation Court upholds over 5-year sentence for man convicted of sexual assault on woman with disabilities

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation upheld a November 2023 Criminal Court ruling, sentencing a repeated offender to over five years in prison after convicting him of engaging in sexual activities with a woman with mental disabilities in June 2023.

The court declared the defendant guilty of sexually assaulting a person with disabilities and handed him five years in prison.

However, the court decided to increase the sentence to seven-and-a-half years in prison because the defendant was a repeat offender.

The 21-year-old victim suffered from minor mental disabilities that made her act as a nine-nine-year-old, according to court transcripts.

Court papers said the victim ran away from her home on June 2 and met with the defendant whom she knew a few months before the sexual assault incident.

“The two engaged in sexual activities eight times before the matter was exposed” court papers said.

The family alerted the authorities and the defendant was arrested, court papers added.

The defendant contested his verdict through his lawyer claiming that he “had no knowledge that the woman suffered from mental disabilities and that he planned to marry her,” court papers said.

Meanwhile, the Criminal Court’s attorney general asked the higher court to uphold the sentence.

The higher court ruled that the Criminal Court brushed the defendant’s claims aside stating that “it is very clear that the victim suffered from mental disabilities that made her unaware of what is right and what is wrong”.

Therefore, the higher court ruled that the court proceedings were accurate and that the defendant was given the appropriate punishment.

The Court of Cassation was headed by Judge Mohammad Ibrahim and included judges Fawzi Nahar, Ibrahim Abu Shamma, Qassem Dughmi and Majid Rafaya.