*Accused of raping 12-year-old cousin
Former council candidate for Alliance for Progressives (AP), Taujoruavi Maekopo will be hoping he has more success in the courtroom than he did with the ballot box.
The 25-year-old, who lost out in the Gumare-Tubu South ward at last year’s general elections, is accused of raping his minor cousin back in February 2016.
The case resumed this week, with the complainant and her family appearing before Maun Magistrate Court to testify against the suspect.
The young girl’s father admitted to beating up Maekopo, but told court that was only after the young man confessed to defiling his daughter.
“At first he denied it. But as we pressed him on with questions, he admitted the act and that is when I whipped him.”
The man was responding to Maekopo’s attorney, Lesego Phoi, who suggested he had overreacted and badly assaulted Maekopo for the alleged crime.
“You said he reported the assault to the police. According to you, was this behaviour consistent with that of someone who was being accused of a serious crime?” Phoi asked the father.
However, the dad maintained Maekopo admitted his guilt before he whipped him five times with a sjambok.
Maekopo is being tried for sexual assault and is facing evidence from the two young girls who were sharing a room with his alleged victim, who was 12 at the time.
The AP member is accused of sneaking into the girl’s room at night, where the girls were sharing a bed.
He allegedly lifted his young cousin from the bed, laid her down on a mattress he had positioned on the floor, removed her pyjamas and raped her.
The girl’s evidence, which was held on camera, and that of her family is said to be very consistent with original police statements taken almost four years ago.
The girl maintains that initially she thought she was dreaming but was awoken by a sharp pain of penetration when Maekopo entered her.
It is her word that when she woke up he was still inside her and she pushed him off.
The complainant’s younger sister also claims that she ‘saw Maekopo on top of her sibling with his boxer shorts pulled down’.
The trial is set to continue on 6th March with Maekopo currently out on bail.
