This afternoon, Kareem Williams, 27, a bodyworks mechanic of Supal Street, Belize City, was unanimously acquitted of charges of rape and robbery by a jury of 4 men and 5 women before Justice Adolph Lucas in the Supreme Court.
Williams, unrepresented in court, had been accused of forcing sexual intercourse with a female resident of Chancellor Street, then 40 years of age, in the West Landivar area of Belize City at gunpoint on the night of October 7, 2009, and taking from her a gold chain and ring and a Nokia cellular phone, total value $1,550.
The female complainant, now 42, testified in camera that she was walking to her home between 7:30 and 8:00 that night, having come from buying groceries at a shop on Bachelor Avenue.
As she turned off University Drive onto Chancellor she saw a man riding on a bicycle.
The man, she testified, took out what looked like a firearm from his pants waist, pointed it to her head, and, threatening to kill her if she made any noise, ordered to take off her pants.
He snatched the gold chain and ring from around her neck, she said, then pushed her to the ground, got on top of her, and raped her while still holding the gun to her head. She told the court that she got a good view of his face for most of the nearly 10 minutes of their encounter, except for a few seconds when he had her on the ground.
As he was getting ready to leave, she said she began reaching into her pants pocket for her cell phone, and as she was getting it out he saw it and demanded it. When she did not reply, he took it away and rode off on the bicycle, threatening again that he would kill her if she made any noise.
Williams was picked up the next day and at an identification parade, the woman picked him out of a lineup of men, some of whom she described in court as being “brown-skinned” and other complexions, some with shorter dreads and others longer.
A standard identification parade seeks to find eight persons who, as closely as possible, match the suspect’s physical appearance, facial features, and station in life, to allow for a proper identification. Dock identifications such as the one the accuser made in court of Williams are increasingly being discouraged because of the possibility of being wrong.
A doctor who examined the woman told the court that his examination revealed that the woman’s vagina was intact and had no sign of injury, though he pointed out that that was not uncommon among sexually mature women.
Swabs were taken which indicated the presence of semen, which was also found on the woman’s undergarment, but because Belize does not have DNA technology, the forensic analyst testifying in court could not say whose semen it was.
Williams gave sworn testimony from the witness stand, saying that between 5:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on the date of the incident, he was in a yard on Supal Street drinking with his cousin, Jason “Soup” Williams and two other men, Raymond Alvarez and Leon Thompson; they had been discussing a news item about the murder of a young man at the Lord’s Ridge Cemetery.
At about 9:45 p.m., the accused said in court, he, along with Alvarez and Thompson, went out to the shop popularly known as “Kickdown Fence” on Dean Street to buy three five-dollar orders of fried chicken, which they took back to Supal Street to share. Williams said he went home soon afterward and denied any knowledge of the incident.
Williams called “Soup” and Thompson, who both corroborated his testimony, to testify on his behalf. Each man recalled being surprised upon learning the next day of the charges. Thompson said he met Williams returning from the Queen Street Police Station around 4:30 in the evening on East Canal, where he said Williams told him about the charges; “Soup” Williams said he witnessed his cousin being taken away by police that afternoon and later spoke to his mother after her return from the station, telling her it couldn’t have been her son who did it because he was with them that evening.
Jason “Soup” Williams told the court, “If he (Kareem Williams) raped her (the victim), then I raped her too because we were together that day, we never left each other. You can’t be in two places at the same time.”
Prosecutor Senior Crown Counsel Yohhanseh Cave questioned both Thompson and Jason Williams as to why they were so sure the accused could not have done the crime, when they admitted in court that they were not told the details of the alleged crime at first by Williams or anyone, particularly the time that the incident is alleged to have taken place.
They both maintained that all they knew was that on that date between the hours mentioned, the group of men mentioned above was together, and “Soup” said he and Kareem walked home together around 11:00 p.m.
The jury deliberated for just shy of four hours – three hours and fifty-three minutes. Williams had been on bail, but is currently in detention on suspicion of a burglary committed last night and was taken to the holding cell at the Magistrate’s Court in handcuffs this evening.