05-09-2005, 02:40 PM
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♦*♥Moderatrix♥*♦
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Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: on top of it all
Posts: 50,568
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Norwegian Court Convicts First Woman for Rape
(gg)
OSLO (Reuters) - A Norwegian court has sentenced a
woman to nine months in jail for raping a man, the
first such conviction in the Scandinavian country that
prides itself for its egalitarianism.
The 31-year-old man fell asleep on a sofa at a party
in January last year and told the court in the western
city of Bergen he woke to find the 23-year-old woman
was having oral sex with him.
Under Norwegian law, all sexual acts with someone who
is "unconscious or for other reasons unable to oppose
the act" are considered rape.
The court sentenced the woman Wednesday to nine months
in jail and ordered her to pay 40,000 Norwegian crowns
($6,355) in compensation.
"This is a very harsh sentence," the woman's lawyer,
Per Magne Kristiansen, told the Norwegian news agency
NTB. The woman argued the man had been awake and
consented.
The prosecutor had sought a 10-month sentence and
argued the court should not be more lenient with a
woman than a man. It was Norway's first conviction of
a woman for rape.
Norway has long traditions of equality -- 40 percent
of the cabinet of Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik,
for instance, are women.
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