Three defendants accused of repeatedly defiling a Moroccan girl pleaded not guilty Thursday as the case went to appeal, shocking the country with their light sentences.
According to rights groups in the North African kingdom, the victim was only 11 years old when she was “repeatedly defiled” and became pregnant.
The girl’s legal team had filed an appeal after a lower court sentenced one of her three alleged attackers to two years in prison and the others to 18 months each.
All three could have faced up to 30 years behind bars.
The appeals court will hear testimonies from the victim and a witness, also a minor, in private after the prosecution requested it, citing child protection concerns.
The Rabat appeals court was packed for Thursday’s hearing.
The three men, aged between 25 and 37, denied all charges, an AFP journalist said.
The victim, looking frail and silent, was accompanied by her grandmother and father.
The three defendants, who face charges of “misappropriation of a minor” and “indecent assault on a minor with violence”, hung their heads.
The prosecution requested that “rape” be added to the charges, a request rejected by the judge.
One of the men was confronted with a DNA test proving that he is the father of the child born to the girl.
Asked how this happened, he repeatedly said, “I don’t know”.
The case has sparked outrage in the North African country, with tens of thousands of people signing a petition condemning the sentences, which were handed down on March 20.
The girl, from a village near Rabat, was raped repeatedly over a period of months when she was only 11, according to a statement released last month by the Jossour Forum of Moroccan Women.
According to the news website Medias24, she was impregnated by one of her attackers.
Amina Khalid, the head of INSAF, a women’s rights organization that has been following the girl’s case, stated that she “is starting to smile a little but she is still in shock.”
INSAF has helped the girl go to school for the first time.