KEY POINTS:
Two men facing 12 charges after a Dutch honeymoon couple were kidnapped and robbed and the woman was raped in Northland in November were remanded until next month when they appeared in the District Court at Kaikohe yesterday.
Keith Anthony McEwen, 29, unemployed, of no fixed address, and Christopher Mana Manuel, 27, of Dargaville, were both ordered to be kept in custody for a pre-depositions hearing in Kaikohe on February 19.
Judge John McDonald remanded Manuel in the interim to February 5 because the accused would not consent to a custodial remand for longer than eight days.
Neither accused has entered a plea to a dozen joint charges involving kidnap (two), robbery (two), rape (one), stupefying the woman (one), sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection (five) and fraudulently using a document (one).
All charges follow an incident in which the two young tourists are alleged to have been accosted in their campervan at Haruru Falls in the Bay of Islands on November 10 before being driven around central Northland in the van for several hours.
The couple and their van were abandoned by their captors at Towai, about 20km south of Kawakawa, in the early hours of November 11. The two accused were arrested separately in Northland 10 days later and have now made four court appearances.
The young Dutch couple, whose names are suppressed, have remained in New Zealand but were not in court yesterday.
