4th December, 2015
A Malaysian ex-diplomat is being tried in New Zealand court over sexual assault charges and supposed black magic ritual.
The accused, Muhammad Rizalman, a former military attaché who barged into a lady’s house half naked after defecating at her doorstep said it did not occur to him to cover his nakedness.
In his defence, Rizalman told the High Court in Wellington that he entered the house naked from the waist down to clean himself up.
Crown Prosecutor Grant Burston asked him whether the “emergency defecation” and trouser removal were part of a black magic ritual to make the victim fall in love with him, which the accused denied.
Rizalman, 39, claimed diplomatic immunity and left New Zealand after being arrested in May 2014, but was returned to the country in October last year to face the charges.
According to a police report, the victim, Tania Billingsley, then 21, was alone in the bedroom of her Wellington home watching a movie when Rizalman entered the room naked from the waist down.
Billingsley screamed at him to leave, pushed him from the house, and called the police.
He said he thought she smiled at him at a local supermarket and appeared to invite him to make contact, which is why he followed her home.
“I expected her to maybe go in and prepare some food and invite me in and then go in and talk about my problems,” Rizalman said while defending his actions.
Rizalman who entered a guilty plea to the charge of indecent assault on Monday, had further charges of burglary and assault with intent to commit sexual violation, which was dismissed.