Court frees Sheikh in torture case

Bait al-Faqih court acquitted Sheikh Shuaib al-Fashiq of charges of raping a citizen Hamdan al-Dersi and restricted the freedom given to him in the indictment. The victim’s complaint was presented to the General Attorney by Allawo Foundation for Advocate.

Al-Dersi, the Hodeidah worker who filed the suit against Sheikh al-Fashiq allegedly for sodomizing and torturing him, was represented by his lawyer Khaled al-Raimi, who demanded YR 10 million as compensation for his client. 

The court convicted al-Fashiq with private prison with a minimum penalty, which is considered an inherited social need to the objective address of relevant stakeholders, as stated in the operative provision:

“we do not absolve of the judgment to condemn the accused in this regard under the Article No. 246 sanctions.”

The provision said that al-Fashiq has the right to demand compensation to confront what the case caused, as the public prosecutor is entitled to refer Mohammed al-Dersi and others to trail for perjury in accordance with the law. “There is intention to publish the judgment through the press, which has followed the case as a kind of reconsideration for the accused al-Fashiq,” the judgment read.    

The court session presided over by Judge Jalal al-Maqtari ordered to arrest al-Dersi after the sentence was read and to put him in jail.

Lawyer Mohammed Naji Allawo, General Coordinator of the National Authority for the Defense of Rights and Freedoms (HOOD), expressed the judgment as a blow up of the constitutional provisions for customs and bad social inheritance. “Al-Fashiq attacked our client al-Dersi by force and prepared a special prison for seizing the freedom of people and torturing them,” he said. 

“We do not expect from the weak judiciary system caught up in corruption and subservience to authority over such provisions to be effective; in the end the system condemns the victim and discharges the offender,” Allawo said.

Al-Dersi decided to appeal the judgment, according to his lawyer al-Raimi. “We reserve our comments on the judgment until we receive a response and until we end studying its causes and its reasons.”

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