Kashour files appeal
Photo: Gil Yohanan
'Arab rapist' petitions High Court
Arab man convicted of rape after telling woman he was Jewish, single submits appeal to High Court of Justice; 'Judges represent outdated worldview whereby only men enjoy sex,' attorney claims
First report: Sabar Kashour, convicted of rape
after posing as a single Jewish male, petitioned the High Court of Justice Thursday in a bid to reduce his 18-month prison sentence, Ynet learned.
"It appears that we, in Israel, would also feel a sense of unease had we heard that a Jew was convicted of raping a Christian woman abroad - even though they engaged in consensual sex - just because he did not reveal his Jewish roots," the petition read.
According to the appeal, the conviction prompted global outcry and led to accusations that Israel's legal establishment is racist.
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Attorney Elkana Laist is claiming that the District Court's sentence went much beyond the norm, given that his client engaged in consensual sexual relations with the complainant.
"It's hard to believe that a person who engaged in sex a few minutes after the initial meeting gave much weight to the statement that her partner was interested in a serious relationship," the attorney said.
The judges who sentenced Kashour ruled that he showed basic human indifference towards his victim, yet the appeal charges that this statement constituted "an outdated, patriarchal worldview whereby only a man can enjoy sex, while the woman cannot enjoy it at all and would only consent in exchange for a promise of a relationship, and only as long as this relationship involves a man of identical ethnicity"
The appeal also argues that the court did not give enough weight to the fact that the meeting between Kashour and the woman was random, rather than a case of pre-planned fraud.
"We are dealing with a man who has no criminal record and a one-time offence that did not involve the use of force and that was mostly about presenting a false image," the appeal says.
Given the arguments presented in the appeal, Kashour is asking the court to significantly reduce the sentence and annul the 18-month jail term, leaving only a conditional sentence in place.
