Sexual assault trial gets underway in Saskatoon

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Watch above: Sexual assault trial begins two years after incident on U of S campus

SASKATOON – Two men accused of sexually assaulting a young women on New Year’s Day in 2012 had their first day in court on Monday.

Farouk Sadiq and Butchang Khem both pleaded not guilty to the charge.

The alleged victim says while she doesn’t recall seeing anything put in her drinks on the night in question, she maintains she was drugged and then repeatedly raped.

The alleged victim testified to meeting Sadiq several times before the assault and said she would later learn there was DNA from a second man when her rape kit was processed later that year.

Closing her eyes and weeping at times, the alleged rape victim recalled the assault saying she was repeatedly vaginally and anally raped on Jan. 1, 2012.

“I was hurting and I wanted it to stop,” said the alleged victim.

With an inability to move her arms, she said the next thing she remembered was being vaginally raped.

“I remember saying stop, all I heard was ‘shut up, shut up'”

She testified she woke that morning at 10 o’clock with Sadiq on top of her, raping her. The alleged victim said her skirt was hiked up and her shirt and bra twisted below her breasts.

On Monday, she testified she was in so much pain she had difficulty sitting on a chair and tried unsuccessfully twice to pass urine.

Hours later and still riddled with pain, she testified she told her sister what happened and eventually went to Royal University Hospital that evening to be examined.

“It hurt so bad…I can’t…it hurts,” she said when the doctor’s examination got underway.

At 1 a.m. on Jan. 2, 2012, she gave an interview to police.

Prior to this, the woman who was 20 at the time, said on the night of New Year’s Eve 2012, she and a girlfriend were at Beily’s night club. At some point, she blacked out after drinking and doing cocaine.

She testified she had limited memory the rest of the night and a group, including her and the two accused, went to an after-party, eventually ending up at a student residence where the alleged assault took place.

Court viewed a surveillance video from the apartment building taken just before 4 a.m. which showed the group entering but the witness testified she didn’t remember any of it.

During cross-examination the defence pointed out in the security video that it would appear that the alleged victim kissed Sadiq, one of the accused, while waiting inside the entrance.

The trial, by judge alone, resumes Tuesday and is scheduled to run the entire week.

The Crown says it plans to call 17 witnesses to the stand.