Court upholds sentence in underage case

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation has upheld a November Criminal Court’s ruling sentencing a man to over nine years in prison after convicting him of engaging in sexual activities with his Egyptian minor fiancé in mid-2018.

The court declared the defendant guilty of engaging in consensual sexual activities with the 16-year-old minor on several occasions and handed him a seven-year prison term.

However, the court decided to increase the sentence by two years and four months “because the victim was a virgin at the time if the incident”.

Court documents said the defendant and the victim got engaged one week before the first incident.

“The defendant headed to the victim’s house when her family was not there and convinced her to engage in sexual activities and she agreed,” court transcripts said.

The defendant repeated his actions with the minor “over 10 times but the matter was exposed when the victim’s father spotted the two together and filed a complaint,” the court transcripts added.

The Cassation Court ruled that the verdict was correct and that the defendant deserved the verdict he received.