Click to view full size

A 32-year-old man from Cara­pichaima has been freed of rap­ing a teenag­er in 2016 af­ter she re­fused to tes­ti­fy against him.

A nine-mem­ber ju­ry be­fore High Court Judge Gail Gon­za­les was yes­ter­day di­rect­ed to re­turn with not guilty ver­dicts for the man af­ter the vic­tim in­di­cat­ed that she did not want to pur­sue the mat­ter when she was due to tes­ti­fy.

De­spite the out­come, the man, whose iden­ti­ty was with­held due to the na­ture of the case, was not im­me­di­ate­ly freed as he had an un­re­lat­ed and pend­ing case for mur­der.