The Kathmandu District Court today remanded suspended national cricket team captain Sandeep Lamichhane in custody pending a final decision on charges of raping a minor girl. Lamichhane was taken to the Central Jail after the court order. He’d been in police custody since Oct. 6, when he was arrested at Tribhuvan International Airport.
The court looked at several pieces of evidence, including video footage from the Kathmandu Inn, the hotel where Lamichhane had gone with the victim on the night she said she was raped, the victim’s medical report, the testimony of hotel employees who corroborated the victim’s claims, messages the two had exchanged on Snapchat, and documents police had recovered from the hotel.
Lamichhane has the right to appeal today’s decision to a higher court. The court has scheduled the next hearing of the case for Nov. 23. The complaining party, the government authorities, must produce the victim’s brother who filed the FIR against Lamichhane, the victim and the doctor who prepared the victim’s report.
The respondent, on the other hand, must produce the original copy of the victim’s birth registration.The respondent has claimed that the prosecutor File photo: THT not a minor, but a 19-year-old girl, as shown by her birth registration. However, the victim’s citizenship certificate in the FIR shows that she’s 17 years old. The accused had argued that there’s no proof that Lamichhane raped the girl.On September 6, the victim along with her elder brother had filed a complaint against Lamichhane at the Gaushala Police Circle.She accused him of raping her on the night of August 2 in a hotel room in Sinamangal, Kathmandu.
She’d alleged that she was raped twice and beaten up when she protested.Video footage showed them both leaving the hotel early the next morning. Lamichhane left for Kenya the same day to take part in the cricket T-20 series in Nairobi. He later traveled to the West Indies to participate in the Caribbean Premier League. When the rape allegations were made against Lamichhane, he captained the national cricket team. He was later suspended from the national team by the Nepal Cricket Association after a warrant was issued for his arrest.