THE HAGUE, Tuesday - A court in Assen has sentenced 21-year-old professional footballer Mustafe Ahmed to 30 months in prison for raping a 56-year-old woman.

Ahmed committed the crime on 22 July 2007 on the German island of Borkum, where he was on a training camp with his Dutch club, BV Veendam. The Somali player claimed that the woman had sex with him voluntarily after a visit to a disco. The court did not consider his story credible.

Ahmed returned to his teammates in a bloody state, and said he had been assaulted by a group of men. However, his injuries turned out to have been caused by his victim, who fought fiercely when he knocked her off her bicycle and raped her.