A Cairo court sentenced on Thursday a sacked judge and two others to 15 years in prison each for kidnapping and raping a woman at a private villa on the country's North Coast. The woman, who was working at a real estate financing office owned by the second defendant, himself a friend of the former judge, was tricked into travelling to the North Coast under the pretext of organising a real estate conference, according to the prosecution. The real estate office's owner persuaded the woman to stay with him at a villa owned by the Judge's second friend, the third defendant in the case, due to the lack of vacant rooms in the North Coast's hotels. The judge and the first defendant assaulted and raped the woman inside the room, as per the investigation. The police intervened the following day after being called by a neighbour who saw the woman trying to flee while two men – the judge and his first friend – chased her. In order to cover up the incident, the sacked judge tried to offer the victim a large sum of money and marry her using an informal or unregistered marriage certificate – which is locally known as an urfi (customary) marriage – that predated the incident Egypt has been cracking down on sex crimes, encouraging victims of sexual assaults to come forward. Last year, a bill proposed by the justice ministry to keep the identity of sex crime victims confidential was approved. The government has recently passed laws stiffening jail sentences and fines for sexual offenders.
