Tehran, Apr. 28, 2003 (ANI): An
Iranian court has sentenced a group of 53 tribesmen to a total of
281 years in prison for luring scores of destitute young girls to
work as sex slaves in Pakistan.
A senior court official in Mashhad
said the gang, mainly members of an Afghan Baloch tribe living as
refugees in Iran, had been handed sentences ranging from lashes to
15 years imprisonment after being found guilty of charges, including
abduction and slavery.
The gang, backed up by several
Iranian accomplices, were caught seeking out poor families around
Mashhad and offering to marry young girls, some as young as 12,
reports Dawn.
The girls were then whisked away from
Iran's northeast to Afghanistan and then Pakistan, where they were
put to work in brothels.
"This
was a horrible thing to do, and that is why they were given the
maximum penalty," said the official. (ANI)
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