A Cork TD has slammed the decision of a court to consider the “difficulties for a foreign national serving a sentence in this jurisdiction” when reducing the prison time for a sex offender who sexually assaulted a very vulnerable woman in a swimming poll steam room.
Ken O’Flynn TD said that he would be raising the issue directly with the Minister for Justice after Akbar Moqadar (36), originally from Afghanistan, was convicted of oral rape of the woman in August 2022.
The woman, described in the Central Criminal Court as having an intellectual disability and being very vulnerable, said in her victim impact statement that she “can’t understand how any strange man would do that to me” – and that Moqadar “ruined everything” for her, that she worried about seeing her attacker again, and that that she has not been to the swimming pool in question since the incident.
The court had been asked by Moqadar’s counsel to take into account that he has limited English and that his time in custody will be more challenging as a foreign national. They also claimed that he had been aware that the woman has an intellectual disability.
Judge Patrick McGrath said “the court accepted the defence’s submission that Moqadar could not be sentenced on the basis that he knew the woman had an intellectual disability”.
He also “set a headline sentence of eight years, which he reduced to seven years to take into account the difficulties for a foreign national serving a sentence in this jurisdiction.”
Deputy O’Flynn said that “the nationality of the offender should never reduce the punishment for such a crime,” adding “The victim in this case lives with the consequences for life. Yet the system found space to reduce a sentence because the offender was a foreign national.”
“Let us speak plainly,” the Independent Ireland TD said. “Rape is rape.”
He said the principle which allowed nationality to be taken into consideration in this way “is wrong”.
“Our justice system must stand firmly with victims. The law must send a clear signal. Anyone who commits serious violent or sexual crime in this country faces the full consequences of the law,” he said.
There should be “no special considerations. No special treatment,” he added.
“I will be raising this issue directly with the Minister for Justice. Irish people deserve answers,” the Cork TD said. “Victims must come first.”