Five men jailed for raping 14-year-old girl

Five Emirati men have been sentenced to jail after being found guilty of raping a 14-year-old girl earlier this year, daily paper The National reported.

Two of the men were sentenced to six months, with the remaining three being sentenced to a year, after being found guilty in an Abu Dhabi court.

The first man had sex with the girl after arranging a meeting with her through social media site Facebook. Following the assault, the girl was left stranded in Dubai and phoned another man, whom she had also met through the social site, for help, but was instead taken to an Al Ain hotel, where the man and his friend held her captive for two days and had sex with her.

Following the second ordeal, the girl then phoned another friend, who happened to be a UAE policeman. The man and his brother, also a policeman, then took the girl into the desert and forced the girl to have sex with them both. She was then left in the desert by the brothers and was later rescued by the police, who proceeded to arrest the five men.

A defence lawyer for the men said the charges should be changed to ‘consensual sex’, as the girl was older than 14 according to the hijri (Islamic calendar), the report said.

All five men were charged with rape as the girl was deemed to have been too young to consent to the sexual acts. All five men denied the charges against them.