Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Search continues for convicted rapist who skipped 2014 court appearance

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More than four years after failing to appear in court following a sexual-assault conviction, Timloh “Butchang ” Nkem continues to be the subject of a search by Saskatoon police.

Nkem is wanted on a Canada-wide warrant for sexual assault in connection with a rape on Jan. 1, 2012. He was convicted in September 2014. Released on conditions for what was supposed to be six weeks following his conviction, he was scheduled to appear in Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench for sentencing arguments on Oct. 31, 2014 — but never showed up.

“When they said that he was being released I said to my mom, ‘He’s not showing up’; I knew right away that he was gone,” the rape victim said in a 2016 interview with the Saskatoon Starphoeni­x. Her identity is subject to a publicatio­n ban.

In the ensuing years, police have received tips from across the country. Investigat­ors with the Saskatoon police sex crimes unit have searched for Nkem “in different provinces as well as in Africa, where he is from,” Saskatoon police said Tuesday in a news release.

Nkem is 5’ 11” and weighs around 170 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes.

The Crown had opposed his release, saying Nkem — who came from Nigeria to Canada on a student visa in 2006 — was a flight risk. He also faced outstandin­g charges of breaching his bail conditions while awaiting trial on the sexual assault charge, the Crown argued.

Nkem raped the woman in an off-campus University of Saskatchew­an residence on New Year’s Day in 2012.

On the same day Nkem was convicted of rape in 2014, a Saskatoon judge acquitted an acquaintan­ce of Nkem’s, ruling the man had an honest but mistaken belief that he had received consent from the woman.

The woman had testified she blacked out after being drugged at a bar earlier that night. She said she had flashes of memory involving the acquitted man and painful sex, but no memory of going to the Mceown Park apartment — or of ever meeting Nkem.

The woman remembered the face of the second man because he was having sex with her as she woke up. She did not know about Nkem’s involvemen­t until a DNA match was made months later.

 ??  ?? Timloh Butchang Nkem
Timloh Butchang Nkem

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