Closing arguments tackle girl's credibility

The prosecutor in a rape trial made a passionate closing speech yesterday, insisting that "the jury is not the jury of the accused but of the girl; she has been suffering for 11 years".

The trial has been characterised by tension throughout, with the prosecution and defence counsel at each other's throats, raising objections to the point where Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono had to warn them to keep calm.

Lawyer Nadine Sant, from the Attorney General's Office, told the jurors that the girl, who was aged seven at the time, had been consistent throughout the years and had not once changed her version.

Speaking with a picture of the girl facing the jurors, she said her testimony was corroborated by all the witnesses and, to a certain extent, by the statement released by the accused himself, who is now 27.

She asked the jurors: "How could the girl lie so well? How could she maintain her lies throughout all these years?"

Sitting in the dock, the accused shifted in his chair and reacted to the prosecution's arguments by letting out a half smile occasionally.

Defence lawyer Joe Mifsud, in his own closing speech, questioned the prosecution's approach and said the lawyer was trying to use sympathy and imagination to prove her point.

He attacked the girl's credibility as a witness. For example, he said, in her testimony she had mentioned a red car, which was allegedly used by her uncle to take her to Ħal Far and in which he allegedly performed lewd acts in front of her. This could not have happened, he said, because the red car had belonged to her grandfather and had been transferred onto another person a year before the alleged rape took place.

Dr Mifsud pointed out that the main question in this trial was between who was telling the truth and who was not.

Jurors are expected to retire to deliberate today.

Names are not being published by court order.