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Canny detective work nabs alleged rapist
View(s):Nearly three weeks of careful investigation and analysis of CCTV footage by police have led to the arrest of a suspect accused of the rape of a Hungarian national.
The suspect, a van driver, was produced in court early this week and placed on remand.
The attack occurred in Hikkaduwa on February 19, after the Hungarian woman mistakenly got into the wrong van to proceed to the airport to pick up her fiancé, a Sri Lankan, who was returning from overseas.
Hikkaduwa Police Acting Officer-in-Charge, Inspector Dinesh Nishantha de Silva, who led the investigations, said the seeds of the tragedy were sown when the arrangements for the van hired to take the woman to the airport went awry, with the van driver not arriving at the correct time.
Worried about the delay in the van’s arrival, the Hungarian woman tried without success to contact the driver. She then saw there was a vehicle parked where she had arranged to be picked up and asked the driver of that vehicle if he was going to the airport.
The driver said yes and she climbed into the vehicle.
After leaving the lights of Hikkaduwa behind, the driver stopped the van on an empty stretch of road near a bridge and raped the woman inside the vehicle.
He then dropped her off by the roadside. Managing to summon a three-wheeler, the victim returned to where she had been staying and reported the attack to the police the next morning.
Inspector de Silva began the hunt for the rapist that day, inspecting the CCTV cameras sited at the location where the victim got into the van.
Police discovered the van used in the attack was a white Toyota Hiace KDH. A further breakthrough came when a camera at a petrol station revealed that the vehicle possessed particular accessories, including three special lights and a sticker pasted on the rear window.
CCTV footage on March 1 showed the van in Unawatuna, where the driver had picked up two tourists from a guesthouse near the famous Unawatuna Devol Devalaya (Welle Devalaya).
Inspector de Silva questioned employees at the guesthouse and learned the van had been dispatched from a travel agency in Mt Lavinia.
The information was sent out to police stations and the inspector shortly afterwards received a call from an officer who reported that a van matching the description provided to police had been stopped at a roadblock and that the driver had said he was working for a travel agency in Mt Lavina.
Inspector de Silva arrived at the scene and observed that modifications had been carried out on the van to alter its appearance, but he found that the driver had not deleted pictures in his phone that showed the van as it had looked prior to the modifications.
After further investigations the suspect was produced for an identification parade this week, where he was picked out by the victim. He is behind bars on remand pending his next court appearance in two weeks time.