Six years in prison for DJ who raped 19-year-old language student

A DJ who persuaded a 19-year-old English student to come to his apartment where he raped her despite her lack of consent has been sentenced to six years in prison.

The rape took place on a Saturday night in October 2021, when Henry Alonso Cano Rojas, a then 32-year-old Colombian national who worked as a DJ in a club in Paceville, asked the victim to go with him at around 3 a.m. He did not say where he was going.

The teenager had spent the evening dancing and drinking with her friends in the club they went to every day during their stay in Malta.

She had approached the DJ, asked him to play a few songs, and danced with her friend near the DJ booth.

Towards closing time, the teenagers stayed inside for a while and waited for the crowd of clubbers to leave the bar.

As the young woman and her friends stepped outside, the DJ grabbed her hand and told her to go with him.

“I don’t want to go with you. I have to stay with my friends. I can’t come with you,” the victim complained.

But the defendant insisted.

He let her go briefly when she signaled to a friend in Dutch that she needed help.

Her friend intervened and maneuvered the victim away from the man, whose behavior was “annoying” the object of his attention. However, because her friends were nearby, she felt safe.

As soon as her friend left her side to buy a pizza, the man grabbed her hand and dragged her to a nearby apartment block.

He asked her to help him carry his bag of music equipment upstairs and she accepted, not realizing what she was getting herself into. She later regretted this “decision”.

He told her to leave his bag in the bedroom, and although she hesitated, she went in.

Then he closed the door and told her to look at the view from his bedroom balcony.

“Okay, great, but I really have to go now,” said the victim.

As she turned to leave, he started kissing her and pushed her onto the bed.

All her efforts to stop his unwanted advances were in vain.

Seized by panic, she “simply froze.”

When recounting her ordeal, she explained that “the only thing she could do was look up at the ceiling like a lifeless body.”

She simply didn’t know “what to do” anymore. She managed to pull herself away and abruptly end the sexual act when the phone rang in her pocket, which was lying on her chest.

It was one of her friends calling to check on her.

When she caught up with her friends in front of the defendant’s apartment block, all she could say in Dutch was “rape”.

The next day, the defendant sent her a text message saying he was “sorry about last night.”

He said he was “really drunk” and “couldn’t remember anything.”

She finally reported the incident to the police after confiding in her parents. Her father immediately took a plane to Malta and went with her to the police.

The DJ was charged with rape and holding the alleged victim against her will.

He pleaded not guilty and decided to testify as a witness at the trial.

The man said he met the victim six or seven times over the course of three weeks.

He had played her songs and they had danced together.

Her attitude made him feel like there was “something special between them,” and he insisted that the sex was consensual.

In announcing the verdict, the court, presided over by Judge Rachel Montebello, noted that two conflicting versions of events did not necessarily mean that the defendant had to be acquitted.

In this case, after examining the witness statements and all other evidence presented, the court concluded that the victim’s version was more credible.

The defendant’s account contained certain inconsistencies.

The surveillance camera shows DJ holding her hand and leading her to the apartment

DNA evidence supported the victim’s statement that the sudden ringing of her phone forced the defendant to stop abruptly and get off her.

The surveillance camera footage also showed him holding her hand as he led her to his apartment. The statements of friends confirmed the victim’s version.

The court said that it was nothing unusual for the victim to return to the club after the incident.

She had often visited the place with her group of friends when she visited the island as a language student.

Ultimately, there was no room for ambiguity that the victim had not consented to any intimacy, let alone sex, and the defendant could not have missed this.

The court also found that a partner was guilty of rape if, at any point, even in the middle of sexual intercourse, he or she withdrew his or her consent, made this clear to the other partner and the other partner persisted.

After a final examination of all the circumstances, the court pronounced a guilty verdict, sentenced the defendant to six years in prison and ordered that his name be entered on the sex offenders’ register after the verdict becomes final.