A 37-year-old shepherd was sentenced on Monday to six months in jail for trying to kill a woman with a knife in her flat.
The Sudanese defendant attacked his compatriot after he failed in an attempt to rape her. He earlier pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder, attempted rape and trespassing into others’ property.
He admitted that he consumed alcohol and the court referred him to the Court of Misdemeanours on that charge. The Court of First Instance ordered that the defendant be deported after completing his jail term.
According to prosecution records, the defendant trespassed into the complainant’s flat in Naif and tried to rape her. When she resisted, he assaulted her and tried to stab her with a knife he found in the flat. He pushed her down and lied on top of her and tried to take her clothes off. But he moved away when she bit his chest.
Earlier, the complainant’s Sudanese neighbour recounted in the court how she knocked on her door in the early morning hours seeking help after she was beaten by the defendant who tried to rape her.
The complainant, a 29-year-old on a visit visa, told the prosecutor that she had met the defendant at a shoe shop in Freej Al Murar in Naif earlier on that day in March. He offered to help her carry her baggage to her place and she agreed.
Around 10pm two days later, he reached her flat and asked her to go with him to a nightclub but she declined and asked him to leave and never come back again. About 3am he called up by phone, saying that he would be reaching her place without listening to her saying no.
She was surprised later by seeing him entering her flat, the door of which was not locked. He was very drunk. He asked to have sex with her and he attacked her as she declined.
He told her that ‘he would kill her and would get away with it as he was on a residence visa’. She passed out when he assaulted her again. When she woke up the accused was not there.
A police sergeant described the complainant as exhausted with apparent struggle marks and bruises on her face on that day.