AMMAN — The Court of Cassation has upheld a June Criminal Court ruling sentencing a man to eight years in prison for molesting a child in Amman last March.

 

The defendant was convicted of molesting a nine-year-old girl three times on March 16 and handed him the maximum punishment.

 

Court papers said that the victim was walking to a supermarket in her neighbourhood when she was met by the defendant.

 

“The defendant pulled the victim to a side road where he touched her private parts," court documents said, noting that the victim managed to escape and informed her family.

 

“The victim’s parents asked their daughter to show them the person who sexually attacked her by asking her again to go to the same shop while following her from a distance,” court transcripts said, maintaining that, when she approached the shop, the defendant was still there and “approached her again and attempted to molest her but was stopped by her parents”.

 

The defendant contested the Criminal Court’s ruling, asking to be declared innocent and argued that the “victim was too young to give a credible testimony and she also gave conflicting statements”.

 

The defendant also contested the victim’s parents’ testimonies arguing that “it was contradictory and that he did not commit anything wrong with the girl”.

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

The Cassation Court comprised judges Yassin Abdullat, Mohammad Tarawneh, Naji Zu’bi, Bassem Mubeidin and Majed Azab.