Monday, the Court of Cassation upheld a strict sentence of the Grand Criminal Court to imprison a person accused of sexually assaulting his niece, aged seven.

The culprit was charged with four counts of sexual assault and was sentenced to 11 years and eight months.

The victim lived with the culprit, who is her father’s brother, as the victim’s mother and father are separated and her father is in a rehabilitation and correction center serving a sentence issued against him.

The court said that when the crime happened, the seven-year-old was sleeping next to her uncle when he took his clothes off and then took hers off and started touching her before assaulting her three times and the fourth time he wiped the semen off of her leg and took a shower.

The victim informed her stepmother, her sister and her father when they visited him in prison and the Grand Criminal Court made the penalty more severe due to the fact that the victim is the culprit’s niece.

In its decision, the Court of Cassation said, “The decision of the Grand Criminal Court fulfilled its existing legal conditions and punishment, and it must be upheld.”