Prominent South African Judge Seeraj Desai, who has been accused of raping an Aids activist during the World Social Forum in Mumbai, is a victim of blackmail, his lawyer said on Wednesday.
The allegation came as the media in India and South Africa cast doubt on the case against the 53-year-old Desai, who also received vocal support from veteran anti-apartheid campaigners.
“It is a pure case of blackmailing. It is a pure attempt to demoralise the judge,” said lawyer CR Hirani.
Desai was arrested on Monday after a 26-year-old South African woman told police the judge raped her in his hotel room when she went to meet him at 3am on Sunday to discuss the next day’s events at the anti-globalisation forum.
The woman told police that they both “cuddled and kissed” and that she handed the judge a condom when he demanded sex. However, she said she later rejected his advances and that the judge raped her.
The judge has admitted having sex with the woman, but says it was consensual.
The Asian Age newspaper quoted the judge as claiming that the alleged victim’s husband had been involved in a case tried back home. Desai said he had been framed because he did not settle in the husband’s favour.
“There was a case in South Africa where I was being coerced to ‘settle’ the matter in a certain manner,” the judge was quoted as saying.
“Since I did not do that, this lady’s husband was annoyed with me and now I have been framed in this manner.”
The judge has been arrested and detained since a complaint was filed against him, but he has yet to be formally charged. He could face a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.
Hirani said the woman’s allegations were untrue.
“There seems to have been some old business between her, her husband and the judge and that is why she is trying to blackmail my client,” he said of the victim’s spouse, who has spoken to South African radio shows about the incident and offered to withdaw the complaint if Desai apologised.
Desai, a Cape High Court judge who is married with three children, was denied bail on Monday and will re-apply on the expiry of his five-day police remand on Friday, the lawyer said.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, ex-wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela, visited the judge in detention for a second time on Wednesday. She said she knew the judge as an “honourable man”.
Prominent anti-apartheid figure Fateema Meer and compatriot Farid Essar also visited Desai in prison, reports said on Wednesday.
Dumisa Ntsebeza, a member of the South African Foundation of Human Rights of which Desai is vice-chairperson, said Madikizela-Mandela and Meer expressed confidence the Indian judicial system would clear the judge.
The respected Times of India English-language daily questioned the woman’s allegations in a front-page column on Wednesday.
“No woman sensitised to the burden of gender can find it easy to say this, but sisterhood cannot be subpoenaed to spring blindly in defence of the Aids activist who has accused the 53-year-old judge of sexual assault,” wrote the columnist Bachi Karkaria.
A veteran female journalist for ThisDay newspaper in South Africa also questioned the rape claim in a front-page opinion column on Tuesday.
“I am both a woman and a seasoned journalist, and a combination of intuition and instinct developed over many years tells me that, whatever happened in a hotel room halfway across the world, it wasn’t rape,” wrote Marlene Burger.
South African diplomats are scheduled to meet Mumbai police Commissioner PS Pasricha later on Wednesday to discuss the Desai situation. — Sapa-AFP
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