Man sharing rapist's name compensated for jail term

A Guinea-born man who was wrongly jailed for five months because he had the same name as a convicted child rapist has been awarded $61,000 in damages by a French court.

Mohamed Camara not only bore the same name and surname as the rapist but was born in the same city as him - Guinea's capital Conakry - and in the same year, his lawyer Frederic Berna told AFP.

The court deemed Camara's case a serious breach of justice, he said.

Camara was arrested in July 2001 while travelling on a train from Paris to Brussels following an international arrest warrant for a convicted child rapist who had been sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison.

He spent three months behind bars in Brussels and two more months in France after being extradited.

He was released on December 31, 2001 after the victims and the family of the convicted rapist said they did not recognise him, Berna said.

After his time in prison, Camara developed psychiatric problems that forced him to stop his university course in the western city of Nantes, where he was studying social science.

In 2012, he was again detained in northeastern France due to the still pending arrest warrant, before police realised their mistake and let him go.

The damages awarded were lower than what Camara had been seeking - 180,000 euros - but higher than what the state lawyer had suggested, 12,000 euros.