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©New Straits Times (Used by permission)
by Sushma Veera

KUALA LUMPUR, Mon: A 24-year old woman having sexual intercourse with her boyfriend immediately after being raped by two men is not an acceptable story, the High Court heard today.

Counsel Rejinder Singh submitted that the unemployed woman, who was alleged to have been traumatised and terrified by the incident, could not have had the desire to have sex with her boyfriend.

“Instead, she should have taken steps to ensure that the culprits were caught and punished,” he said. “Hers was clearly not a reasonable behaviour.”

Rejinder said she should have alerted the public at the nearby restaurant where she claimed to have been dropped off by one of the accused. Instead, she spent the night with her boyfriend in a hotel.

Rejinder was submitting before Judge Datuk Mohamad Zaibidin Mohd Diah at the appeal of B. Selva Kumar, 28, and P. Nanda Kumar, 27, who were sentenced to 10 years’ jail and five strokes of the rotan by the Sessions Court on Dec 21, 2006, for raping the woman.

Selva Kumar was alleged to have raped her under a tree at Padang Merbok at Jalan Parlimen on March 8 at midnight, while Nanda Kumar allegedly committed the same offence at the same place at 12.20am.

Rejinder, who appeared for both accused, said the victim clearly lied in court about the events leading to the alleged rape, giving three different versions of the incident.

“She had claimed that she was pulled, then she said she was carried and on another occasion, the victim claimed to have been taken to the place of incident,” he said.

Rejinder said at first the victim denied knowing Selva Kumar but under cross-examination she said she knew him as he was her boyfriend’s friend.

He said the victim claimed she had been raped but it was the defence contention that she was a willing partner. He also said the trial judge should not have called for the defence because of various contradictions in the victim’s evidence.

He also questioned why the victim’s boyfriend was not called to testify despite she telling the court that he was the first person she had met after the incident.

He said that the trial judge in her judgment had mentioned that the victim had suffered injuries on her lips and had a swollen wrist but her medical report did not state anything about swollen wrist.

Rejinder said the lies by the victim and the contradictions in her evidence should have compelled the trial judge to look for corroborative evidence and in its absence, she should have warned herself on the risk of convicting the accused.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Tetralina Ahmed Fauzi will reply on April 16.

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