Indian rape accused to plead not guilty, seek trial

Three of the men accused of raping and murdering an Indian student in a case that has provoked widespread anger with the government and police will plead not guilty, their lawyer said on Wednesday, citing lapses in the police investigation.   

The 23-year-old physiotherapy student died two weeks after being beaten and gang-raped on a moving bus in New Delhi, then thrown bleeding onto the street. Protests followed, along with a fierce public debate over the failure of authorities to stem  violence against women.   

Five men are facing various charges including  murder, rape and abduction. A sixth suspect is being investigated separately to determine if he is below the age of 18, as he says he is.   

Lawyer Manohar Lal Sharma, who is representing the bus driver, who is the main accused, his brother and another man, said he was keen for the case to go to trial so that the evidence police had presented could be tested in court.  

Police conducted extensive interrogations of the men in the absence of any lawyer and they say they have recorded confessions.   

Legal experts had said a lack of representation for the suspects could give grounds for appeal if they were found guilty. Convictions in similar cases have often been overturned years later.   

Sharma and another lawyer, V. K. Anand, offered to defend the five men when they appeared in a New Delhi court for the first time on Monday.   

The case has shone a light on a widespread problem of violence against women but also the failure of the criminal justice system to bring the guilty to justice in a country where official statistics show a rape is reported every 20 minutes.   

The trial will be conducted in a special fast-track process, set up after the attack, but some legal experts have warned that previous attempts to fast-track justice in India had, in some cases, led to imperfect convictions that were later challenged.


REUTERS