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| District Court |
Four Filipinos and a Bangladeshi were acquitted today of “indecent conduct towards a child under the age of 16 years” and common assault, on the third day of their trial scheduled for two weeks at District Court.
Judge Clement Lee told the five -- Benjur Macaraig, 46; Julie JR Arcega, 32; Gina Villanueva, 51; Jimwoel Macaraig, 53 years old; and MD Moazzim-hossain, 42 -- that they had no case to answer after the alleged victim, identified only as X, told the court through a video link that her earlier accusations were a result of a bad dream.
X, now 13 years old and was 10 when she claimed to have been
attacked inside their hut on Kung Om Road in Yuen Long on Jan. 3, 2023, was
responding to cross examination by a defense lawyer when she admitted that her
accusations were from a bad dream.
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| PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE |
She repeated her statement when asked by the lawyer to do
so.
All the five as well as X’s parents, are holders of a
recognizance form that identifies them as non-refoulement claimants seeking to
stop the Hong Kong government from sending them to their home countries.
Only three of the five were set free after Judge Lee’s ruling,
as two of them were detained by other courts for unrelated and pending charges
of breach of conditions of stay filed by the Immigration Department.
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| Basahin ang detalye! |
As non-refoulement claimants, it is illegal for them to
accept employment, whether paid or unpaid.
One of them, Arcega, was arrested while working illegally in
a door-to-door company’s warehouse, The other, Villanueva, was under detention
on an Immigration case.
The trial began last Monday with the prosecutor presenting a
videotaped police interview of X describing how the five, who were neighbors of
X’s family, entered their house through a broken front door, enter the bedroom
where she was home alone, undressed and touched her body.
On the third day, however, she changed her story.
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