THE man found guilty of raping a woman as punishment for reading the Bible lured her to his unit by claiming he had news of her family overseas. Abdul Reda al-Shawany was today found guilty of sexually assaulting the then-Muslim mother of four - a refugee from the Middle East who had left her children and husband behind - for her "insult" to Islam.
She had been studying the Bible because she was interested in Christianity. After the attack, at al-Shawany's Warwick Farm unit in Septmeber 2002, she converted.
It took a jury just half an hour to convict al-Shawany, 52, of two counts of assault at Campbelltown District Court. Even after the decision was handed down he protested his innocence, with his lawyer Christopher Pike indicating his intention to appeal. He said there was a viable alternative hypothesis as to how al-Shawany's DNA, in the form of semen, came to be on the victim's underwear - and that he believed his client could be acquitted on appeal.
An application for bail was refused by Judge Brian Knox, who said that the crime was "a fairly brutal attack". Al-Shawany will be sentenced in the Downing Centre on Friday, June 15th. His victim was not in court today. |