High Court dismisses married Saudi diplomat’s appeal against molest conviction

SINGAPORE — Dismissing his appeal as “unmeritorious”, a High Court judge on Friday (July 21) upheld the conviction of a Saudi Arabian diplomat who had forcefully kissed and groped a hotel trainee while on holiday in Singapore last year. 

Bander Yahya A Alzahrani, a diplomat stationed in Beijing, was in February sentenced by the District Court to 26 months’ and a week’s jail, with four strokes of the cane.

He was found guilty of two counts of outrage of modesty and one count of using criminal force on the 20-year-old victim, who cannot be named on court order. 

The 39-year-old had been here on holiday with his wife and three children on Aug 14, 2016, when he committed the offences.

Alzahrani was alone with the victim, who was showing him around a hotel room, when he cornered her in the bathroom and sexually assaulted her.

He had first charged that the victim had conspired with her colleagues to extort money from him.

After his DNA was found on the victim’s back, Alzahrani changed his tune, saying he had helped to support her as she fell towards him.

On Friday, defence counsel Shashi Nathan urged Judge of Appeal Steven Chong to reconsider the evidence presented, especially the closed-circuit television footage, which showed Alzahrani and the woman walking out of the room after the assault took place. 

Noting that the duo were “in close proximity”, Mr Nathan said the victim showed “absolutely no distress .... no fear” when walking out from the room. 

“This is quite telling because whether it was a confident, young woman, or a (quiet person) ... one would not think that that would be her demeanour after (such an) assault,” he said. 

While noting that it was “not an unfair point to make”, Justice Chong said the whole case should not “just rest on this”. 

On the matter of DNA found on the back of the victim’s dress, Mr Nathan conceded that his client had touched her, but only because he had used his hands to stop her from falling. 

Justice Chong said he was “troubled” by Alzahrani’s account, which were “reflective of a person who knew there was contact, but hoped to avoid disclosure … until he was confronted by DNA evidence” during cross-examination. 

“The propensity to come out with these (arguments) during cross-examination … I find most troubling,” he added. 

Responding to the defence counsel’s arguments, Deputy Public Prosecutor April Phang said they were “an exercise in nitpicking to cast more aspersions on the victim”. 

Noting that Alzahrani displayed “bold dishonesty” throughout the proceedings in the lower court where he gave “conflicting accounts”, Ms Phang charged that the diplomat’s defence “had more holes than a sieve”. 

On the CCTV footage shown in court on Friday, Ms Phang argued that it showed that the victim was “trying to do her job” despite the assault, and had “put (Alzahrani) and the institution (she was working for) above herself” in that instance. 

In dismissing Alzahrani’s appeal, Justice Chong said that there was “no reason” to disagree with the District Judge’s decisions, adding that the sentence was “lenient, especially given the dishonest manner” in which the diplomat carried himself. 

However, he added that he would not be increasing the diplomat’s sentence, given that the prosecution did not ask for it. 

Alzahrani will start serving his sentence on July 28.