Man handed three-year jail term for sexual assault

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation has upheld a September Criminal Court ruling sentencing a man to three years in prison after convicting him of sexually assaulting a man in one of the Kingdom’s governorates in November 2017.

The court declared the defendant guilty of sodomising the 23-year-old victim at knife point on Nov. 17 and handed him a four-and-a-half-year prison term.

However, the court decided to immediately reduce the sentence to three years because the victim dropped charges against the defendant.

Court papers said the victim met the defendant through friends and they started seeing each other regularly.

On the day of the incident, the court maintained, the defendant and the victim were alone in an apartment and the young man drew a knife and asked the victim to undress.

“The defendant sexually assaulted the victim and then allowed him to leave unharmed,” according to the court transcripts.

The victim immediately filed a complaint against the defendant and he was arrested, court documents stated.

 The defendant contested the verdict, through his lawyer, arguing that the “court relied only on the victim’s testimony and there was no solid evidence to implicate him”.

“My client was not given the chance to defend himself during the court proceedings,” the defence argued.

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

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

“The defendant did not provide any evidence that he was unable to defend himself during the court hearings,” court papers said.

The Court of Cassation judges were Mohammad Ibrahim, Naji Zu’bi, Bassem Mubeidin, Nayef Samarat and Majid Azab.