Corozal District, Tues. June 16, 2020– A 14-year-old girl was raped in Chunox. Yesterday, two men from Chunox were charged in connection with the offense. Manuel Yacab, 28, a laborer, was charged with rape and kidnapping, while Ergil Josemar Pat, 18, also a laborer of Chunox, was charged with abetment to rape and kidnapping.

The men were charged after police concluded their investigation into the rape of the girl, which occurred on the evening of Tuesday, June 9.

Police said that the men were arrested in Corozal Town on Saturday. They were charged with the offences and were detained pending their appearance in court on Monday.

The two men were taken to the Corozal Magistrate’s Court yesterday, Monday, where they were arraigned by Magistrate Ed Usher for the offenses. No plea was taken from them, and they were remanded until Wednesday, August 26.

Magistrate Usher advised them that due to the nature of the offences, the court could not grant them bail, but they could apply for bail at the Supreme Court.

On Tuesday, June 9, the girl and her mother went to the police and reported that she was taken by the two men in a vehicle, against her will, to an area outside the village, where one of the men raped her.

After the ordeal, she was released and the men drove away. She then went home and told her mother, and they both went to the police, where she made an official report.

The girl told police that while she was riding her bicycle on the road on her way to her home in the village, a vehicle drove up close to her and stopped in front of her, causing her to fall, and two men whom she knew came out of the vehicle and forced her inside, and they drove away with her to an area where one of the men raped her.

CTV3 News Belize said that attorney Leslie Hamilton appeared in court on behalf of the two accused men.

Feature photo: Yacab and Pat being taken to the Corozal Magistrate’s Court