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Rabat – The Rabat Court of Appeal decided today to postpone to next week the appeal trial of the three men involved in the repeated rape of an 11-year-old girl.
The court demanded the presence of a witness at the request of the Public Prosecution, and the appeal trial is scheduled to take place on Thursday, April 13.
Dozens of lawyers supporting the victim’s case attended today’s appeal trial, converging reports said.
According to the news website Le360, the court’s decision to postpone the trial came at the request of the victim’s lawyers, who seek more time to study the case and prepare their arguments.
The postponement of the trial comes amid widespread frustration, with many activists and ordinary citizens having strongly condemned the Rabat court’s initial sentence on March 20.
While the court had convicted the three defendants for repeatedly raping the victim, who was 11 years old at the time of the crime, it only handed them a two-year prison sentence. Activists denounced the court’s “unfair” and “shocking” ruling and described it as as an implicit “normalization of rape culture.”
The rape, which took place near the victim’s house in the town of Tiflet in northwestern Morocco, resulted in pregnancy. The victim gave birth to a baby boy when she was only 12-years- old, and a DNA test confirmed that one of the three rapers as the father.
The appeal trial opened today after human rights activists and associations denounced the initial light sentence.
Read also: Tiflet Child Rape Case: Victim’s Parents in Shock, Pain
Pending next week’s appeal trial, both the victim’s devastated family and outraged Moroccans hope for the court to overturn the initial sentence.
The victim’s grandmother acknowledged in an interview earlier this week that the parents of one of the rapists attempted to “reconcile” and offered to have their son marry the victim.
The victim’s father rejected that offer and is instead hoping to see all three sexual predators be duly punished for their crimes.
On Wednesday, several activists gathered in Rabat to denounce the initial verdict.
“This verdict is incomprehensible, unjust and shocking. We are here to make the child’s voice heard. It has to stop!” one of the protesters told AFP.
The protesters carried banners against the court’s verdict and rape and chanted several slogans, including “no to the rape of young girls.”
