vrijdag, oktober 17, 2003

In Amerika zijn de hoorzittingen begonnen tegen Kobe Bryant, de multimiljonair basketballer die afgelopen zomer met een vrouwelijk persoon het bed indook, en die vrouw was dus niet zijn echtgenote. Kan gebeuren denk je dan, maar het wordt natuurlijk wat lulliger als die vrouw je vervolgens gaat aanklagen voor verkrachting. Dan komen de advocaten er aan te pas en dan krijg je getuige verklaringen en allerlei details zoals hieronder:

Sheriff's Det. Doug Winters — the investigator who interviewed Bryant's 19-year-old accuser the day after he is alleged to have raped her at a mountain resort in Edwards, Colo. — was cross-examined for nearly 2 1/2 hours by defense attorney Pamela Mackey.
• The woman did not tell Winters during an initial interview that she had said "no" during five minutes of sexual intercourse with Bryant. In a later interview with Winters, the woman said she did recall having told Bryant "no" several times. In the first interview, the woman said that Bryant had stopped when she resisted.

• The woman showed up for her rape examination less than 24 hours after the encounter with Bryant wearing underwear containing another man's semen. The source of the semen is unclear.

• Pubic hair samples from the woman, Winters said, also turned up hairs from a white person that could not have come from Bryant, who is black.

• The first person the woman met after the alleged assault was the hotel night auditor, not a bellman, as was previously thought. The auditor wrote in a letter to investigators, saying that the woman, as she finished her shift as a front desk clerk, "did not look or sound as if there had been any problem."