Mohammed Rahman Arsala, an Afghan migrant who was jailed last year for 15 years for raping a 12-year-old boy in France has attempted to justify his actions by saying that it was a 'normal' cultural practice in his home country, reported French media. He also claimed ignorance of French laws.
“In my country, it is normal to have sexual relations with young boys because women are inaccessible. When I arrived in France I did not know your laws, but since I learned that it was prohibited,” the migrant stated through his interpreter.
He also alleged that the incident would not have occurred if he had had a wife to satisfy his sexual urges.
“And yet we must take into account the cultural element… Because we are all the product of [cultural] standards, of a background. And he was born 100 kilometres [60 miles] from Kabul,” the migrant’s lawyer was cited as saying, according to a report from Le Telegramme.
'Cultural Element' of the Case
The 32-year-old migrant had been brought back to face a court to answer for other offenses against children.
Mohammed Rahman Arsala had moved to Saint-Brieuc in northern France in 2018. In August that year, according to court documents, he committed a string of offences. Arsala is described as having followed an underage boy from a bus stop, seizing him and dragging the minor to an abandoned warehouse in August 2018, where he raped him.
The man was detained after a group of girls noticed that the boy had looked distraught when he was returned by the migrant to the local park. The underage girls, who had previously been harassed by Arsala, alerted the police, who arrested the man that same day.
In court, the migrant’s defense lawyer had asked the judge to consider the 'cultural element' of the case, citing the common practice of ‘Bacha Bazi’ – a custom in Afghanistan involving sexual abuse by older men of young adolescent males or boys. While illegal in the country, offenders are reportedly rarely punished.
Prior to his arrest for the boy’s rape, the sex criminal is accused of assaulting and harassing two underage girls.
Thus, in April 2018, he is described as having approached one girl, claiming to need help in English. He lured her to his room where he locked the door and “slammed her against the wall”, according to Actu.
“When I told him I would call the police, he immediately opened the door,” claimed the victim, who days later was hospitalised after a suicide attempt.
“I wanted to touch her a little, but she wouldn't. If she was a decent girl, she wouldn't have come up to my room,” Arsala said in court.
Another underage girl has also filed a complaint with police, saying he had “pursued” her.
“I was very scared, I warned my parents who called the police,” she was cited as saying.
Arsala has had his prison sentence extended by a further three years for the two attacks on the underage girls. After serving his term, he will be deported from France.
In a similar case, a Syrian migrant accused of raping a 12-year-old twice in 2018 told a Swedish court that he was unaware his actions were illegal. A year later, another migrant admitted raping an underage girl in Sweden, while insisting no one had taught him what the laws in Sweden were, reported Breitbart.