Accused said ‘you can’t rape inside marriage’, court hears

A WITNESS at a rape trial has told a jury that the accused, whom she knew through her mosque, told her he could not have raped the alleged victim because “you cannot rape inside marriage”.

The now 36-year-old complainant has already testified that, after a ceremony took place between her and the accused, the 54-year-old man took her back to his flat and raped her a number of times over the course of three days.

The witness told Sean Gillane SC, prosecuting, that the complainant emailed her in December 2017, days after she had introduced her to the accused with the intention of setting them up for marriage.

In the email, the complainant said that the accused “forced her to do it” following what she believed was a marriage ceremony. She was asking for advice on whether it was a marriage that had taken place between them. The witness said four days after she spoke to the complainant she got a text from the accused and arranged to meet him in her office.

“I was quite abrupt and said some very strong words. I said ‘why did you rape her?’ He said he didn’t. He said you cannot rape inside marriage,” the woman said.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to three counts of rape, one of sexual assault and one of attempted rape of the woman in his Dublin home on various occasions over the weekend of December 1 to December 3, 2017.

The woman earlier testified that on a visit to Ireland, in November 2017, she decided to seek asylum here in order to flee from an arranged marriage in her home country.

The witness told the jury she introduced the complainant and the accused, who are practising Muslims, to each other.

She facilitated a meeting between them in her office and later recommended they have phone conversations before a second meeting.

Neither the accused nor the complainant came to the arranged second meeting.

She then received an email in which the complainant said she was “seriously worried”.

In the email the complainant said she and the accused “appeared” to have got married in the mosque, where an imam and four witnesses were present. The complainant said the accused had wanted sexual intercourse and “ended up forcing me to do it”.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Alexander Owens.