Halifax taxi driver’s sex assault trial adjourned after four days of evidence

The high-profile retrial of a Halifax taxi driver accused of sexually assaulting a female passenger has been adjourned after hearing four days of evidence. Bassam Al-Rawi’s trial was scheduled to continue Friday in Halifax provincial court, but there were concerns raised about the translation of testimony from a forensic biologist into Arabic.

Judge Ann Marie Simmons said it is imperative that Al-Rawi understands all of the testimony, and so the trial was adjourned until April 15 to make accommodations and to hear more testimony from Crown witnesses.

Al-Rawi, who is in his early 40s, faces a charge of sexual assault, after an acquittal was overturned last January by the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal.

A police constable has testified she found the woman, now in her late 20s, passed out and mostly naked in the back of a taxi, the driver between her legs. The complainant told the court she was drunk on the evening of May 22, 2015, and does not remember leaving a downtown bar, and her next memory was waking up in a hospital with two nurses and a police officer.