French court jails Saudi naval officer 10 years for rape

A French court has sentenced Saudi naval officer Meshari Al Shamrani to 10 years’ imprisonment for raping a woman in 2021.

The 24-year-old, who was in France for engineering studies under a Saudi-French training programme, was tried in absentia after failing to report to police earlier this year while under judicial supervision.

Chief prosecutor Elsa Guyonvarch described him as “gifted and disciplined” in his academic work, but said he had been unsettled by life outside the classroom. In France, she noted, he experienced “a freedom, a moral permissiveness that was unknown to him,” a cultural shift she said explained his behaviour though it did not excuse it.

Court records revealed that Al Shamrani, married in Saudi Arabia since 2020, also maintained a girlfriend in Brest and frequently hosted alcohol-fuelled gatherings. Following one such party, a 22-year-old woman who could not return home stayed the night. She awoke to find him assaulting her.

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She resisted, escaped, and alerted police. Medical and DNA tests supported her account, and prosecutors stressed, “He completely omitted to seek her consent.”

The victim told the court the attack left her traumatised: “I was devastated, I cried all the time and didn’t want to go out.”

Initially denying the allegation, Al Shamrani later acknowledged the incident but claimed he believed the woman “wanted to make love because she took her trousers off.”

Although the prosecutor had requested an eight-year sentence, the judges imposed a 10-year prison term. A European arrest warrant has been issued, but authorities have yet to track him down.