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A Wellington District Court jury retired early this afternoon to consider the case of a taxi driver accused of raping a woman he picked up in his cab.
Abdirazak Yussuf Mussa, 55, from Miramar, Wellington, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of rape and one of abducting the woman with intent to sexually violate her.
Mussa allegedly took the woman, who has name suppression, to his house instead of taking her home after he picked her up from Courtenay Place about 5am in September last year.
He then allegedly locked the front door with a deadbolt and raped her twice.
Crown lawyer Tom Gilbert said in his closing statements to the jury of eight men and four women this morning Mussa's story that the woman, then 18 years old, had willingly gone home with him, then masturbated in front of him and initiated sex, was "implausible".
"The Crown says that his version is nothing more than fabrication, perhaps even fantasy."
Mussa had also lied to the police, initially denying the facts altogether, then changed his story after he had spoken with a lawyer, and could not be trusted, Mr Gilbert said.
While the woman had got some of the details wrong about the night, she had been up-front about her mistakes and her evidence had the ring of truth to it, he said.
Mussa's lawyer, Sandy Baigent, said even if the jury did not believe Mussa's version of events they had to be sure the woman was telling the truth or acquit him.
Her story was full of holes and she had admitted not telling the whole truth to the police, she said.
Ms Baigent suggested to the jury the woman had made up the story when confronted by her mother two weeks after the fact, instead of "confessing to casual sex with a stranger".
That Mussa had lied to police initially made him "human", she said.
The case before Judge Susan Thomas started on Monday.
- NZPA
