Corpun file 18943

The Peninsula, Doha, 29 September 2006

Court sentences two to 100 lashes each

DOHA • A criminal court yesterday sentenced an Indonesian woman and a Syrian man to 100 lashes each and a year in jail after it found them guilty of having illicit relations.

The case was registered in April this year after the woman complained of genital bleeding and was taken to the hospital by her sponsor.

Hospital authorities suspected that she had taken pills for abortion and referred the matter to the police. The woman, 36, admitted to the police that she had physical relations with a Syrian man, who was 10 years younger than her. The police caught her lover.

They were questioned and charge-sheeted. The man was additionally accused of trespass with the police charging him with entering the house where the Indonesian maid worked.

The duo denied the charges in the court. The Syrian alleged that the police kept him in a lock-up for 24 hours and beat him severely to get a confessional statement. The woman also made similar accusations against the police. The criminal court headed by Judge Abdullah Al Omer, which tried the case, however, ruled against them.

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