MADINA: Police have said they arrested earlier this week a man suspected of involvement in the rape of a woman in Madina last Ramadan for which one man has already been convicted. Saudi Gazette reported on June 1 that the victim had been discharged from hospital after attempting to commit suicide, an act motivated, according to her husband, by the police's failure to identify the second person involved in the attack. One man was sentenced to three years' prison and 1,500 lashes of the whip for the abduction and rape, which the husband said occurred after his wife hailed a taxi in front of their home in the Al-Anbariya District to take her to the Al-Awali District to visit her family. The driver instead took her to an Istiraha (rest house) where he and an accomplice raped her. The husband said he had objected to the sentence and instead is seeking the death penalty. The court was told that the defendant had been arrested on previous occasions for crimes of a similar nature. Police said the second suspect was arrested Tuesday by police in Qibaa' and that the case has been passed on to the Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution. The victim has formally identified the suspect. Lawyer Abdullah Al-Mujadadi, who is representing the victim and her family, described the first conviction in the case as “frustrating”. “The defendant had a previous criminal record involving serious acts such as abduction, sodomy and theft,” Al-Mujadadi said. “Instead of three years' prison he should have been given the death penalty.” He said he has made an appeal seeking a heavier sentence.
