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A Wellington District Court jury today found a taxi driver guilty of raping a young woman after picking her up in his cab early one morning in September last year.
Abdirazak Yussuf Mussa, 55, from Miramar, pleaded not guilty before Judge Susan Thomas to two counts of rape and one of abduction with intent to sexually violate.
The jury took three hours to deliberate before returning with the three guilty verdicts.
Mussa picked up the woman, then aged 18, on Courtenay Place around 5am in September last year.
Instead of giving her a ride home, he took her to his own house where he locked the front door with a deadbolt before raping her twice.
The officer in charge of the case, Detective Constable Trevor Collett, said after the verdict police were pleased with the result.
He said it had been a long 13 months and a "harrowing time for the victim and her family".
"Obviously it was a terrible experience for someone to go through."
He hoped the verdict would help the woman move on with her life.
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, who has name suppression, 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.
Mussa was remanded in custody for sentencing on November 14.
- NZPA
