MADINAH – The criminal court in Madinah sentenced a Saudi driver to death after he was convicted of raping a female teacher after seducing her into his apartment and taking pictures of her with the intention of blackmailing her later.
The man had approached the appeals court against a previous court verdict that sentenced him to five years in prison. The new verdict comes after the appeals court demanded the toughest punishment against the man, who worked as a driver transporting female teachers, considering the horrendous nature of his crime.
The 36-year-old teacher had informed the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Haia) about the incident, which took place while she was returning home after work.
The teacher reaches home last after the driver drops all her colleagues at their homes. On the day of the incident, the driver took the teacher to his apartment on some pretext where he sexually assaulted her before taking pictures of her.
The man then started demanding money from the teacher and threatened to publicize the photos of if she did not pay up. The teacher presented 15 pieces of evidence to prove her claim against the man.
On the basis of the woman’s complaint, the Haia detained the 30-year-old driver. The Haia officers also found the teacher’s photos stored in the man's mobile phone. They also discovered that the man was a drug addict. He was eventually handed over to the police.
The Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecution filed several charges against the driver, which included violation of information technology regulations, threatening women by sending them text messages, possession of drugs, transporting female teachers without a license and misleading the authorities by not giving information about his address.
The criminal court previously sentenced him to five years jail and 1,000 lashes as it could not rule out the woman’s possible involvement in the crime because the alleged sexual assault took place inside the man's flat.
However, the appeals court sent back the case and asked the criminal court to hand down the maximum punishment considering the gravity of the crime.
