2nd FOLLOWUP: Dubai gay rape sentencing

A panel of judges sentenced two Emirati men to 15 years in prison each Wednesday in connection with a kidnapping and sexual attack on a 15-year-old French-Swiss boy.

"Justice was done," said Veronique Robert, the victim's mother, speaking to The Associated Press by phone after the verdict was read in Dubai's Court of First Instance.

A third defendant, who is under age 18, is being tried in a juvenile court on the same charges and could face up to 10 years imprisonment if convicted. The status of that case has not been made public.

When the case came to light, Robert accused Emirati authorities of lying about the HIV status of the older defendant, who is HIV positive, to cover up the fact that AIDS exists in Dubai.

"He (the older defendant) said to the prosecutors that he was HIV positive," Robert said Wednesday by phone after she left the courtroom.

"He knew that he might have planted death into my son, and for that he is a criminal who deserves to be in jail for life."

Original Posting .... First followup

FOLLOWUP: Dubai, rape and AIDS

Followup: Dubai and rape

The boy's mother, Veronique Robert, said her son ``cried a little'' but was ``very strong'' as he testified for 90 minutes in a session closed to the public at the defense's request.

Robert has said that her son accused a police forensic doctor of calling the boy a homosexual while examining him after the assaults, implying the incident was consensual. She also said her son had left the country in early October because French diplomats told her that he might be prosecuted for homosexual acts, a crime here.

When the case came to light, Robert also accused Emirati authorities of lying about the HIV status of the 35-year-old defendant to cover up the fact that AIDS exists in Dubai.

more of the story

Mother's Web site: www.boycottdubai.com

Dubai and rape: French youth tells his story

DUBAI: Alexandre Robert, a French 15-year-old, was having a dream summer in this tourist paradise on the Gulf.

Just after sunset, Alex was rushing to meet his father for dinner when he bumped into an acquaintance, a 17-year-old native-born student at the American school, who said he and his cousin could drop Alex off.

There were, in fact, three Emirati men in the car, including a pair of former convicts, aged 35 and 18. They drove Alex past his house and into a dark patch of desert, between a row of new villas and a power plant, took away his cellphone, threatened him with a knife and a club and told him they would kill his family members if he ever reported them.

Then, Alex says, they stripped off his pants and one by one sodomized him in the back seat of the car. They dumped Alex on the side of the road across from one of Dubai's luxury hotel towers.

The authorities not only discouraged Alex from pressing charges, he says; they have left open the possibility of charging Alex with criminal homosexual activity, and neglected to inform him or his parents that one of his attackers had tested HIV positive while in prison four years earlier.

Read the full story here.