India Gang-Rape Accused To Plead Not Guilty
Posted by Michelle Moquin on January 10th, 2013
Good morning.
India Gang-Rape Accused To Plead Not Guilty
NEW DELHI, Jan 9 (Reuters) – Three of the men accused of raping and murdering an Indian student in a case that has provoked widespread anger with the government and police will plead not guilty, their lawyer said on Wednesday, citing lapses in the police investigation.
The 23-year-old physiotherapy student died two weeks after being beaten and gang-raped on a moving bus in New Delhi, then thrown bleeding onto the street. Protests followed, along with a fierce public debate over the failure of authorities to stem violence against women.
Five men are facing various charges including murder, rape and abduction. A sixth suspect is being investigated separately to determine if he is below the age of 18, as he says he is.
Lawyer Manohar Lal Sharma, who is representing the bus driver, who is the main accused, his brother and another man, said he was keen for the case to go to trial so that the evidence police had presented could be tested in court.
“We will plead not guilty. We want this to go to trial,” Sharma told Reuters.
“We are only hearing what the police are saying. This is manipulated evidence. It’s all on the basis of hearsay and presumption.”
It is not known if the other two of the five accused men have a lawyer.
Charges against the sixth member of the group have not been brought while police complete an inquiry to confirm his age. If he is found to be below 18 he will be tried in a juvenile court and if convicted will go to a correctional home, not a prison, to serve a maximum term of three years.
Sharma said the police had rushed through the investigation against the five men even when they were not ready with the key detail of the age of the sixth member of the group, who lured the woman and a male friend into the bus and, according to leaked accounts, was the most brutal in the attack.
“When you have not even established the age of this person, how can you go to court bringing the charges against the others, and say your investigations are complete,” Sharma said.
“We all know how police investigations are carried out in India.”
FAST-TRACK TRIAL
For days after their arrest, soon after the assault on the woman and a male companion, none of the men had a lawyer. Most members of the judiciary refused to represent them because of the outrage over the attack.
Police conducted extensive interrogations of the men in the absence of any lawyer and they say they have recorded confessions.
Legal experts had said a lack of representation for the suspects could give grounds for appeal if they were found guilty. Convictions in similar cases have often been overturned years later.
Sharma and another lawyer, V. K. Anand, offered to defend the five men when they appeared in a New Delhi court for the first time on Monday.
The case has shone a light on a widespread problem of violence against women but also the failure of the criminal justice system to bring the guilty to justice in a country where official statistics show a rape is reported every 20 minutes.
The trial will be conducted in a special fast-track process, set up after the attack, but some legal experts have warned that previous attempts to fast-track justice in India had, in some cases, led to imperfect convictions that were later challenged.
On Wednesday, the court where pre-trial hearings are taking place rejected an appeal against a court decision to try the men in camera. Namita Aggarwal, the presiding magistrate, said on Monday that the trial would be held behind closed doors because of the sensitivity of the case.
One of the suspects, Akshay Thakur, was due to appear in court on Wednesday when police are likely to seek his remand in custody. Police say they could bring a supplementary charge-sheet if the sixth member of the group is found to be an adult.
The woman lived for two weeks after the attack but died on Dec. 29 in a Singapore hospital where she had been taken for treatment.
She was identified by a British newspaper on the weekend but Reuters has opted not to name her.
Indian law generally prohibits the identification of victims of sex crimes to protect their privacy in a country where the social stigma associated with rape can be devastating.
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Readers: How can any lawyer take on this case and defend these rapists? Reading this write just infuriates me. The young woman was raped, beaten, and left for dead on the side of the road with her guts ripped from her body. Unfortunately she’s not alive to point the finger. These men were charged, there is a witness – the perps made recorded confessions. Now we’re all caught up in the bureaucracy BS.
Instead of protecting women and having strong laws against rape, protecting women (A rape is reported every 20 minutes in India! And I am sure there are plenty that aren’t reported), as well as a justice system that prosecutes these disgusting perpetrators, they have a law instead that generally prohibits the identification of victims of sex crimes to protect their privacy in a country where the social stigma associated with rape can be devastating.
That is so sickening that instead of dealing with the cause of the problem, getting to the root of it – men are raping women and getting away with it – they come up with a bandaid of a law that protects women from the aftermath – the social stigma that’s associated with rape. Yes, women have to live with the devastation of being raped and the social stigma that goes along with it, while the men, the perpetrators, the ones who did the raping walk away untouched, unaffected. Once again, another country where women are treated horrifically, blamed for what men do to them, and have to live with the consequences. When will men rise and evolve and stop this hatred of women?
Thoughts? Blog me.
Peace & Love….where is it?
Howie: Nice to see you here. How are you? What’s been going on with you?
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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January 10th, 2013 at 12:02 pm
What would you expect from a country that still allows slavery?
January 10th, 2013 at 12:53 pm
As to slavery, up to 200,000 children a year fall into the hands of slave traders in India, many sold by their poverty-stricken parents for as little as £11.
There is no respect for human life in India.
And, although it is “outlawed” Sati is still practiced in rural villages. Sati is the Hindu custom in which a widow is burnt to death on her husband’s pyre. Sati can be a voluntary choice or force upon a woman by her in-laws.
What a charming country.
January 10th, 2013 at 1:11 pm
There is no respect for human life in India. It’s better to be a cow.
January 10th, 2013 at 6:02 pm
This trial will be a temporary reprieve for an age old problem. Centuries of treating women like 3rd class citizens is not going to change over this incident.
January 10th, 2013 at 6:04 pm
There will never be justice in India for this crime as all these men should be hanged but this is a country that thrives on denying Women’s Rights and the Male Pigs are treated like kings.
January 10th, 2013 at 6:07 pm
The more I read about India and its legal system the more I am convinced we are dealing with a country and people mired in shit. These defendants will assuredly be found guilty. I wonder what the appeal system is like in this backwards country. If they are anything like the trial stage, chaos, not justice will reign.
January 10th, 2013 at 6:13 pm
“Thousands of lawyers in the local bar association refuse to represent the suspects because of what they called the “heinous” nature of the Dec. 16 gang rape.”
This is madness. Yes the rape/murder was revolting, nauseating, horrifying. But that does not mean we should ignore the legal principle regarding the presumption of innocence.
It is not too far fetched to imagine that the police–under pressure to find those responsible–arrested men who did not commit the crime. (For those who doubt the possibility of forced confessions, remember the police interrogations depicted in the Jewel and the Crown after the gang rape, and more recently in Slumdog Millionaire.
These were not fanciful imaginings.) If the evidence proves these men were the perpetrators–give them the death penalty. Until then, they deserve a proper defense to ensure that the innocent are not punished and the perpetrators remain at large.
January 10th, 2013 at 7:07 pm
MICHELLE
It feels good to visit somewhere I am familiar with, such as your blog.
I was hospitalized a couple of days ago and have wanted to play with the TV monitor / computer that is in my room hanging over my bed. I was sent here for some testing to stabilize my diabetes which has my blood glucose trying to reach a world record.
I hope to be back home sweet home very soon.
Thanks for your concern mentioning me in your Post today.
Your cyber friend,
HOWIE
January 10th, 2013 at 7:20 pm
I drip for hours after you call.
January 10th, 2013 at 7:22 pm
Tess, it is better to be a “backwards country” which is attempting to give the accused areal trial than a “forward” country that simply sends accused away to an offshore island to not even be tried. Or to more distant countries to be tortured.
Oh sorry “enhanced interrogation”. The arrogant, biased, and condescending comments from the ill informed on these pages is mind boggling.
January 10th, 2013 at 7:25 pm
Howie, I will pray for your speedy and safe recovery.
Adira
January 10th, 2013 at 7:26 pm
Sorry to hear you are ill Howie. I wish you the best.
January 10th, 2013 at 8:56 pm
Howie, sorry to hear your down, and wish you the best for a speedy recovery/stabilization.
India sounds as heinous as this crime, what do you do with a country that large that has a population of males who feel so little for the females who give them LIFE?? I
Hey Misch, I just got around to watching yesterday’s video, it reminded me of when I was 7, I grew up 4 houses away from a museum and a 6 month exhibit was the growth of a baby in the womb, I thought it was fascinating until the last few pictures showed the babies head smooshing and morphing out of the ‘birth canal’ better known as the V-jay, and I say oh hey, naynaynaynonononoNO…hahaha…guess I meant it, my girl came out C style, must’ve given her a psychic shout out to bypass the usual exit strategy ; )
& Misch, I know you’re busy as I am though I’d love to chat on the phone whenever you get time – next week mid-week sometime…my girl turns 14 on Tuesday (holy shit : ) – she asked me if she could have my car when she’s 16, oh yeah…let the teenage games begin!
Luv, Zen Lill
January 10th, 2013 at 10:20 pm
I hope you’re planning on doing something about it soon. My mouth is dry and could use a little drink.
January 11th, 2013 at 8:42 am
Michelle, you don’t know the whole story about these creeps.
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The gang of men charged with the rape and murder of an Indian physiotherapy student deliberately tried to find a woman to rape and kill and ended the night with blood on their clothes, a police report seen by Reuters said.
http://www.emirates247.com/news/delhi-gang-rape-six-rapists-hunted-victim-on-fated-night-aimed-to-kill-whoever-they-trapped-2013-01-11-1.489766
January 11th, 2013 at 9:04 am
In India a woman is raped every 20 minutes.