Alleged victim ‘was like my daughter and I was like her mother’
Accused in sex-shame attack says she did not post videos
The accused ringleader on trial for the 2015 kidnapping and sexshame attack of a young Congolese woman testified on Tuesday that she treated the alleged victim like a daughter.
“She was like my daughter and I was like her mother,” Eunice “Chou Chou” Ilunga, 43, told court.
The prosecutor found her testimony hard to believe in the face of evidence that Ilunga threatened the alleged victim — telling her she was going to post videos of the attack online.
Again and again, Ilunga denied the threat, saying: “I was just speaking to scare her.”
The attack was later posted on Facebook in a series of graphic videos, according to evidence presented in court. The young woman, half naked, is seen crying as she’s berated for having sex with Ilunga’s boyfriend.
In another video, the woman, who was allegedly kidnapped at knifepoint, is seen undressed on a bed as someone applies hairremoval cream to her pubic hair.
Under cross-examination by Crown attorney James Cavanagh, Ilunga denied that she posted the videos. She claimed she had no idea who accessed the videos from her cellphone to post them on Facebook.
Ilunga admitted on the stand that she applied hair-removal cream to the alleged victim’s pubic hair, but said it was done with consent.
She also admitted she slashed the woman’s couch with a knife before leaving her apartment, court heard.
Asked about the knife, Ilunga testified: “I’m not a criminal who walks around with a knife.”
Ilunga also admitted on the stand to lying to police days after the July 2015 attack. Back then, she told police the alleged victim opened her apartment door. Ilunga told court she got a key to the apartment and entered it without consent during the alleged kidnapping.
Ilunga has denied the kidnapping, claiming the young woman consented to go with her to another home, where she was subjected to the attack captured on video.
Ilunga also had trouble recalling where and when she first saw a phone video of her much younger boyfriend having sex with the alleged victim, who was 21 at the time. It is this video that launched Ilunga’s revenge attack, according to the Crown.
She testified that the video made her anything but angry. She told court it instead made her calm, like a soft breeze in the backyard.
She also testified she has no criminal record. Asked about a 2003 conviction for assault causing bodily harm, she said she couldn’t recall.
“It doesn’t ring a bell,” Ilunga told court after the prosecutor detailed her sentence, which included 700 days of probation.
She also couldn’t recall being charged with assault with a weapon, a charge that was withdrawn years ago.
“I’m not a criminal with a weapon. I spend my life with children — not arms,” she testified.
The complainant also testified at trial, and her evidence prompted the Crown to drop its case against one of Ilunga’s alleged accomplices.
The case against the alleged accomplice was dropped after the complainant testified that one of the accused was trying to help her, not harm her.
The case has shaken Ottawa’s tight-knit Congolese community.
The trial of Ilunga, Safi “Lolo” Mahinja, 27, and Sandrine TombaKalema, 37, is anchored in videos of the attacks that court heard left the young woman fearing for her life.
All of the accused have pleaded not guilty to kidnapping, sexual assault and publishing intimate images without consent.
The judge-alone trial continues.