Cassation Court upholds seven-year sentence for convicted child molester

AMMAN — The Cassation Court has upheld a November Criminal Court ruling sentencing a 67-year-old man to seven years in prison for molesting two boys in Amman.

The defendant was sentenced to the prison term after the Criminal Court found him guilty of molesting two children aged 12 and 13 in his car in the suburb of Muqabalein on June 5, 2014.

The court ordered the defendant to pay JD6,000 in compensation to the victims.

The court said that the defendant met the two victims in downtown Amman and asked them to help him fix his vehicle.

“The defendant then offered to buy the two young boys sandwiches because they helped him and they agreed,” court papers said.

The defendant drove the victims to Muqablein where he molested them inside the vehicle, according to court papers.

“One of the boys managed to run from the vehicle, notified the authorities and the defendant was arrested,” court transcripts said. 

The defence lawyer had contested the Criminal Court’s ruling, arguing that his client “doesn’t deserve the sentence he received because of the contradiction in the testimonies of the victims”. For his part, the attorney general asked the higher court to uphold the verdict because the Criminal Court “followed the proper procedures when convicting the defendant”.

The Cassation Court, which issued its ruling earlier this year, stated that the Criminal Court’s ruling falls within the law and its proceedings were correct.

The Cassation Court tribunal comprised judges Basel Abu Anzeh, Mohammad Ibrahim, Yassin Abdullat, Bassem Mubeidin and Hussein Sakran.