Follow-up on this previously noted article about a French boy who was raped by 3 Emirati men in Dubai:

The public prosecution in Dubai yesterday demanded the maximum penalty for two Emirati men accused of raping a French-Swiss teenager in a case that has attracted international attention.

“I demand the maximum penalty against the two accused,” one of whom is said to be HIV positive, a representative of the public prosecution said at a hearing in the booming Gulf emirate.

Under the penal code in the United Arab Emirates, the maximum penalty if the suspects are convicted could mean a death sentence.

The prosecutor accused the pair of “losing their humanity and turning into human wolves” when they committed their alleged sexual assault against the 15-year-old boy in July.

The trial of the two UAE nationals opened on October 24. A third Emirati defendant, who is a minor, is being tried separately in a juvenile court.

The two accused, aged 18 and 36, committed “a horrible crime of abduction and rape, threatening (their victim) with a knife and baton, in an isolated desert spot,” the prosecutor said. The mother of the alleged victim, Swiss journalist Veronique Robert, told the tribunal that her role as a mother was to help her teenage son “rebuild and forget.”

“Only you can decide the punishment. But my mother’s heart tells you that God gives life and only God can take it away,” she said, visibly moved.

“I was drunk,” was all the older of the two defendants, who according to legal sources is HIV positive, said in court.

The trial was adjourned until November 28 to hear the defence arguments.

Source: AFP