Five suspects in 8-year-old child rape case re-arrested in Iraqi Kurdistan: reports
Eight-year-old Kurdish girl raped in Erbil in April 2019 with her father at a press conference in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, February 21, 2020. Photo: Video Roj News
HEWLÊR-Erbil, Iraq’s Kurdistan region,— Following an outcry over the government’s handling of a case where a seven-year-old was raped last April, five suspects in the case have been re-arrested.
In April 2019, a seven-year-old Kurdish girl is abducted from her school and raped by three men in Erbil, the capital of the autonomous region of Kurdistan.
Three primary suspects, who are accused of kidnapping and raping the girl, were freed on bail last June. The other two people are believed to be accomplices.
The arrests were the result of an intervention by Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, according NRT TV.
The government was forced into action after the girl’s family began to speak out again, saying that they had been threatened in an attempt to get them to drop the case, prompting extensive public condemnation of the authorities handling of the case.
The father of Kurdish girl said on Friday that he wanted the court to be just and fair regarding his daughter’s case and that both the perpetrators and those who attempted to intimidate his family into silence should be punished. The father said that members of the police had threatened him, telling him to drop his lawsuit against the all three suspects..
The rape took place in April in Erbil, when the girl was seven-years-old, and the family has been fighting for justice for their daughter ever since.
Violations of the rule of law are common in the Kurdistan Region, where locally dominant parties often exert a high degree of influence on judicial and police matters. If defendants are well-connected, plaintiffs often receive threats to drop their cases.
Copyright © 2020, respective author or news agency, Ekurd.net | nrttv.com
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