3 men convicted in gang rape of American tourist in India

GlobalPost

Three Nepalese men were convicted Tuesday in the gang rape of an American tourist in a small Himalayan town in India.

The men, all in their 20s, were each sentenced to 20-year prison terms, the Wall Street Journal reported.

More from GlobalPost: A year after the Delhi gang rape, what's changed?

They will also have to pay $250 in fines.

The men were convicted of raping and robbing the American woman in June after she had asked them for a ride in the Indian mountain state of Himachal Pradesh.

They had pleaded not guilty.

The verdict comes one day after the one-year anniversary of a fatal gang rape aboard a New Delhi bus that drew attention to the country's epidemic of sexual violence against women.

Four men were convicted on charges of murder and rape and sentenced to death in that case, which sparked an overhaul of India's criminal code and resulted in harsher punishments for rape as well as criminalized offenses such as stalking and voyeurism.

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