| A court in Doha awarded a year in prison to a 36-year-old Pakistani man for getting a 25-year-old Iranian woman pregnant. The court also ordered that he be lashed 99 times for adultery. However, the judge cleared him of rape charges “for lack of evidence”. The man is currently in jail and the court said the period spent in prison would be deducted from his sentence, the Gulf Times reported on Tuesday. The newspaper did not name the individuals involved. According to the prosecution, the man was employed as a driver in the plaintiff’s house. The plaintiff claimed that in May, 2005, the man lured her daughter to a garage and raped her. The case took a turn in December when the accused’s lawyer told the court that “the couple” was married. The marriage, arranged by the lawyer, created a new situation in the trial. Judge Manon Hamour said the case was unique and went “from bitter hostility to becoming a family”. The judge said the marriage proved that the accused was the “illegitimate” baby’s father. “On the day of the crime, they were not married and therefore, the man cannot escape punishment,” the judge ruled. On the woman’s status, a legal source said that the court could not punish her since no formal complaint was filed against her. The woman gave birth in January 2006. |