DUBAI, Dec 12, 2007 (AFP) - A Dubai court on Wednesday sentenced two men from the United Arab Emirates to 15 years in jail for raping a French-Swiss teenage boy.
A lawyer for the victim's family said they would appeal against the sentence, which the mother considered too lenient.
The trial of the two Emiratis, aged 18 and 36, opened on October 24. The older of the two is HIV positive, according to legal sources.
The judge, Fahmi Mounir Fahmi, an Egyptian, announced his verdict shortly after Wednesday's court proceedings began.
"Fifteen years is nothing for someone who knew he had AIDS," the victim's mother Veronique Robert told AFP after the verdict.
"I respect their justice system. But under the French and Swiss legal systems they would have got at least 30 years."
Robert, a journalist, said she could not understand how both defendants were given the same sentence despite the 36-year-old being a repeat offender who has known that he carries the HIV virus for several years.
She was also angry at the Dubai authorities for failing to tell her that one of the attackers was HIV positive until six weeks after the July 14 rape.
The victim has tested negative for the disease but it can take up to six months for the virus to appear.
Robert said she would "continue battling for the rest of her life" if her son was found to have contracted AIDS.
A juvenile court in Dubai is trying a third suspect in the same case. His trial is due to resume on December 25.
The accused were charged after offering the victim a lift from a Dubai mall on July 14 before driving into the desert where the teenager was raped while being threatened with a knife and billiard cue.
Defence lawyers claimed the 15-year-old European had consented to sex and that he had lied to the authorities. The sex act was "in consent and not forced" on the teenager, they said.
The Dubai public prosecutor's office last month demanded the maximum penalty for the two adults, one of whom said he was drunk at the time. Under the UAE penal code, the maximum penalty for rape is death.
Robert has launched a website urging people to boycott Dubai in a bid to publicise the case and the lack of facilities offered to child rape victims and those with HIV and AIDS.
She also demanded that the UAE recognise homosexual rape in its legal system and set up adequate bodies to treat AIDS victims.
Dubai government spokesman Habib Al-Mulla told AFP that the concept of a treatment centre was "tempting," adding: "We like it."
He said a recommendation for a sexual assault centre was being prepared for the government, although it was not known how long it would take to establish such a centre.
The case has been widely reported in the Western media, some of which have said it harms the image of Dubai, a bustling leisure and business hub in the oil-rich Gulf.
"Although she (Mrs Robert) has said so many things about Dubai, still it's a good idea. Why not? It doesn't matter who made the idea," Mulla said.
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