Doha, Qatar - A Dutch woman who alleged she was raped after being drugged in an upmarket nightclub in Doha was convicted of having sex out of wedlock by a Qatari court on Monday and given a one-year suspended sentence.
The woman, 22, was ordered to be deported to the Netherlands once the ruling was formalised, which is expected over the coming days, the ambassador to the Netherlands Yvette Burghgraef- van Eechoud told Al Jazeera at the courthouse.
The accused man in the case, identified as Omar Abdullah al-Hasan, was also convicted of having sex outside of marriage - a serious offence in this conservative Gulf state.
A court official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said that the man was from Syria.
Hasan will receive 100 lashes for illicit sex acts and another 40 lashes as punishment for public drunkenness, and will be deported.
Hasan and the Dutch citizen, identified as "Laura", were not present as the judge read out the verdicts.
The court official described the one-year suspended sentence as "lenient".
"Had she been a Muslim woman, she would have received at least five years in jail. No one can get out of such charges here in Qatar," he said.
Van Eechoud said the woman had asked her to convey the message to the media and the public to respect her privacy at this time.
"We will do everything we can to get her out of the country as soon as possible. Under the circumstances, Laura is doing fine," she said.
Laura said she was drugged during a party in March at the Crystal Lounge nightclub at the W Doha Hotel, and woke up in an unfamiliar apartment when she realised she had been sexually assaulted.
She had been on holiday at the time, and reported the incident to Qatari police. She was arrested on March 14, and has been held ever since on charges of committing illicit sex acts.
Hasan has acknowledged having sex with the woman but said it had been consensual, according to Dutch media reports.
The Dutch embassy told Al Jazeera that officials have been in close contact with Laura and her family in the Netherlands of the past few months.
The victim's mother was quoted by Dutch media describing the ordeal her daughter was going through as a "nightmare".
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I remember hearing about this article back on Sunday, where a women was getting charged in Qatar for being raped. I remember feeling outraged, and a small part of me feels relieved after hearing that she will be deported. The original sentence was to be around fourteen years in prison for the poor woman. The whole situation brought the crooked side of the world together around the basis of how "she was asking for it." Alot of men were saying, if she was walking around in Qatar wearing "almost nothing", how could men react? Obviously, it is a poor excuse and I definitely agree with the bias in the article against the man who was found guilty. This past week, the concept of rape has definitely got the world's attention, that even the world is trying to start to re-define what it is, and what it can include. I definitely agree with the author of this article, in how he depicts this as a foolish case. You can clearly hear the cry of the author, and his plea to spread the word; rape is one sided. It is not the woman's fault, in this case.
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