Suspected rapist is said to have threatened woman with knife

42-year-old Jinan Disho is accused of raping, assaulting and threatening to kill a woman in several incidents in late 2018.

The jury, consisting of seven women and five men, began deliberations after hearing closing statements from both the prosecution and defense.

On Monday afternoon, Crown prosecutor Yildana Hardjadibrata told jurors that Mr. Disho’s alleged victim, on whose testimony much of the case relied, was an honest witness who gave truthful “humiliating and graphic accounts” of Mr. Disho’s alleged actions .

In one incident, the woman said she had told Mr Disho to stop several times as he was raping her, but he was “numb as a stone” to her – after which the complainant remembered “washing herself and herself feeling dirty,” said Mr. Hardjadibrata.

In a later incident, Mr Disho threatened to “slaughter” the complainant and others and held out a kitchen knife to her as she “trembled in fear”, the court heard.

The court heard the alleged threats were made because Mr Disho “did not want the complainant to tell anyone” what he had allegedly done.

Mr Hardjadibrata told jurors to reject concerns that she did not immediately disclose the sexual aspect of the alleged offenses for several reasons – including the fact that the two officers who took her initial statement were men and not trained in interviewing victims of sexual violence were crimes.

The court heard that Mr Disho, who has denied the incidents, had never been convicted of a crime, but Mr Hardjadibrata noted that “a person can commit a crime for the first time”.

In his closing statement on Tuesday morning, Mr. Disho’s lawyer, Jonathan Barreiro, told the jury that Mr. Disho would not have committed the crimes he was accused of because it would “put everything at risk.”

Mr Disho is originally from Iraq and came to Australia as a refugee via Jordan in 2018.

“We’re not dealing with a vile Hollywood producer, a church personality or a rugby player, we’re dealing with the man in the dock, a man who gave up everything to get here,” he said Mr. Barreiro.

Mr Barreiro referred to the fact that the complainant had made several statements to police and said the allegations had “increased in size”, with each statement being “fundamentally different from the previous one”.

The court heard that the complainant initially reported physical violence to police in early 2019 and later made “vague references to non-consensual sex”.

“It is only two years later … that all the details are fleshed out,” Mr. Barreiro told the jury.

“This is a situation where she went to the police very early on… (but) what she gave them ultimately didn’t match the full picture of what she testified about on the witness stand.”

Mr Barreiro said the prosecution’s case was mired in “circular logic” as it relied solely on the complainant’s testimony.

He pointed out that there was no medical evidence to support the rape or assault allegations, nor any photographs or records of injuries of any kind sustained.

The police investigation “missed a lot” and there were leads that “were not followed up on,” Mr Barreiro claimed.

The jury’s deliberations will continue on Wednesday.

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