Patrick Afun, a pharmacist, was charged with rape on Tuesday (December 13) after reportedly sedating his fiancée’s elder sister and having sex with her while she was unconscious.
His plea was not taken. Afun, who was not represented by counsel, told the court presided over by Justice George Buadi that he could not afford to hire a lawyer since he was no longer employed.
When the case was called, Afun was fiddling with his phone in the dock and was reminded by the court of the gravity of the offense for which he was on trial and admonished to stop.
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The accused said that he was attempting to turn off the phone, but the court dismissed Afun’s answer as unacceptable.
The court also informed him that if convicted of the offense, he might face up to 25 years in prison.
Afun, who was working at St Anthony’s Hospital in Dzodze at the time, was accused of injecting the victim with a sedative and another drug to treat a vaginal infection.
The complainant was stated to have been weak, disoriented, and nearly dead as a result of this before the accused stripped her naked and had intercourse with her.
The claimed event occurred on the evening of March 22, 2019, in the pharmacist’s official residence at the hospital after they both ate supper served by the victim.
Awake naked
The victim is reported to have awoken naked and disoriented on the bed after the accused injected her earlier in the living room sofa, and she asked the accused what had occurred, to which he replied, “We had sex.”
The victim then stood up, fell down, and struggled to get back up.
She then inquired about her clothing, but the accused refused to hand them up.
She then took a new set of clothing from her bag and limped onto the hospital grounds, only to collapse again while dialing a friend who worked at the hospital for help.
At the hospital, the friend was joined by a security guard, and they both assisted the victim in getting back on her feet before she was admitted to the ward.
After being treated and dismissed, the victim proceeded to the police station to report the incident.
This resulted in the arrest of the accused, who merely acknowledged to lacing the infection treatment with a sedative in order to decrease the discomfort from the injection.
Although the pharmacist denied having intercourse with the victim, a medical examination indicated otherwise, according to the prosecution.
According to the prosecution, the victim was a pharmacy assistant trainee on internship at the time, working under the supervision of the accused.
“So, she was staying with her would-be brother-in-law and only left for Aflao on Fridays to spend the weekend there with her family”.
According to the prosecution, the accused already injected the victim with the first dosage of Ceftriaxone for the infection, with no complications.
The second dosage
The perpetrator woke up the victim while she was asleep on the sofa and requested her to come over to the bedroom for the second dose, which he had laced with the sedative without her knowledge, according to the prosecution.
It was on his bed that he raped the woman, the court was further told.
The court directed the Legal Aid Commission to provide the accused with counsel and adjourned the case to January 31, next year.
SOURCE: GRAPHICONLINE
