A butcher was acquitted by the Grand Criminal Court after he was accused of raping a 17-year-old girl, for lack of evidence.

The accused had faced a felony of raping of an underage girl, according to the indictment, after she had run away from her parents’ home following a dispute with her mother, and wandered around the streets of Amman, when she came across a young man and told him her story.

The young man called his brother (the accused) and asked him for help. The accused took the victim to an apartment where he had intercourse with her. She then moved to a neighboring apartment to live with a girl.

The court decided that based on the provided evidence as well as the victim's testimony that the accused should not be incriminated due to the victim’s ‘behavior.’

The court said that because the victim had run away from her parents’ home, met strangers on the street, stayed in an apartment with a stranger, drank alcohol, as she stated in her testimony, and then returned to the same apartment, at different times, after midnight, her behavior must be taken into account.

It added that the victim was not serious about filing the complaint of being assaulted as she had only filed it after she was arrested because her parents had reported her missing.