A cab driver rapist who fled the country before he could be brought to justice is taking legal steps to appeal both his conviction and sentence.
Sultan Amari, formerly of Chester Road in Flint, has been on the run since September 2016, when he boarded a plane to Turkey halfway through his trial at Warrington Crown Court.
He was convicted and sentenced to 11 years in prison in his absence after the court heard how he raped a student at a house on Sealand Road in Chester just eight minutes after he picked her up as a passenger in his taxi from a night out in the city centre. The jury found him guilty of two counts of raping his victim over a period of eight hours.
Now it has emerged that 48-year-old Amari is trying to lodge an appeal and that a hearing will take place at the Court of Appeal on Thursday (May 10).
A spokesman for the Criminal Appeal Office told The Chronicle: “This is a renewed application for both conviction and sentence and it is going to be heard at the Royal Courts of Justice on May 10, 2018.”
A European Arrest Warrant and a Crown Court Bench Warrant remain outstanding for Amari.
In several emails sent exclusively to The Chronicle over the past 20 months, Syria-born Amari has repeatedly protested his innocence and claimed that his ethnic origin counted against him in the British judicial system.
The Chronicle has passed Sultan Amari’s latest email to Cheshire Constabulary.
