Bible-reading Muslim 'raped as punishment'
By ninemsn staff
An Iraqi Muslim man allegedly raped a Muslim woman in Sydney's southwest as "punishment" for her reading the Bible, The Daily Telegraph reports.
The Campbelltown District Court heard yesterday that Abdul Reda Al Shawany told the woman "Let your Jesus help you", and sexually assaulted her twice.
Al Shawany has pleaded not guilty to two counts of having sexual intercourse without consent between September 1 and 27, 2002.
Yesterday Crown prosecutor Michael O'Brien said the woman — a practising Muslim — had allegedly received threats from members of her faith for reading the Bible.
The woman claims she met Al Shawany, who she had known from overseas, at Warwick Farm railway station in September 2002 after he told her he had mail to deliver to her.
Al Shawany then allegedly took her to a Warwick Farm unit where he assaulted her.
"She was wearing a hijab. The accused grabbed the hijab, the veil, and pulled it tight across her mouth," O'Brien told the court.
"She fell to the floor and she couldn't scream because she had a hijab tight across her mouth."
After raping her, Al Shawany allegedly said: "Let your Jesus help you."
Al Shawany, 52, denied to police that he had sexual intercourse with the woman or threatened her.
"My client is not a zealot," his barrister Chris Pike told the court.
The woman is expected to return to the witness stand today when the second day of the week-long trial commences before Judge David Knox.
and
Death threats after Bible rape
by Evelyn Yamine
A MUSLIM woman who converted to Christianity after she was allegedly raped as punishment for reading the Bible received death threats from her alleged attacker, a court has heard.
The woman – whose identity has been suppressed – was allegedly threatened by Abdul Reda Al Shawany after he allegedly sexually assaulted her in September 2002.
The District Court at Campbelltown was told Al Shawany, 52, called the victim a number of times after the alleged attack and claimed he had filmed the alleged incident and would show it to her family if she did not give him $2000.
"He said, 'If you tell the police or anybody else, you know, I've got a film. I'm going to send it to your family'," the woman said through an Arabic interpreter.
"He rang me and he said, 'Or even I will get some Chinese person, I'll give him a needle, drug, and he will kill you'."
The court was told Al Shawany and the woman met in the Middle East and kept in contact when they both came to Australia.
The woman – who still wears a hijab for cultural reasons – became interested in Christianity when she arrived in Australia from the Middle East and has since converted from Islam.
She was cross-examined by Al Shawany's defence barrister Chris Pike in closed court yesterday.
The woman allegedly told police she noticed a birthmark on Al Shawany's abdomen after he allegedly raped her.
When Mr Pike suggested she had seen his client with his top off prior to the alleged attack, when he worked at a bakery or during a visit at his Canterbury home without a shirt, she denied it.
"I suggest to you that you were at his home on numerous occasions when he was there with his shirt off, when it was hot?" Mr Pike asked.
"No," the woman replied.
The woman alleges that when Al Shawany finished the alleged attack – which she said lasted about 10 to 15 minutes – he said: "Well let Christ benefit you." Then he allegedly yelled out to another man who was in the bathroom of the Warwick Farm unit that he was going to work. The woman said she managed to get dressed and flee a short time later and kept the semen-stained clothes she was wearing that day.
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Pertinent Links:
1) Bible-reading Muslim 'raped as punishment'
2) Death threats after Bible rape
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