Valais rape case: detainee contests his conviction
A man imprisoned at Crêtelongue for rape contests his guilt and denounces gaps in the investigation.
Valais rape case: detainee contests his conviction
From his cell at Crêtelongue, in central Valais, a forty-year-old man named Arash maintains his innocence in a rape case that led him to prison. Journalists from Heidi.news, published by Le Temps, met with him in the visiting room of the correctional facility.
His life trajectory is atypical. After beginnings in the insurance sector and then advertising, he tried his luck in CBD cultivation, one of the first in the canton. The business, however, went bankrupt, undermined by pests and his lack of agricultural experience. This failure plunged him into a difficult spiral.
Originally from the Platta district in Sion, he reconnected in 2018 with Besmir, a school friend. Over the next two years, Arash consumed cocaine and began distributing it to pay for his own purchases. He was selling notably to Véronique, who would later become the complainant in the rape case.
One morning in March 2020, several police officers came to arrest him at his home. Placed in provisional detention, he initially felt a sense of relief, away from his life marked by drugs.
During his first interrogations, he did not yet know that he was the subject of a complaint for sexual assault. Thinking he was answering questions about trafficking, he immediately mentioned an intimate relationship with Véronique, whilst specifying that he had experienced sexual difficulties. He also indicated that Besmir had shown him a text message from the complainant.
These admissions presumably convinced the investigators that they had found the perpetrators, especially as Véronique had mentioned a similar problem with one of her attackers. Yet Arash had no criminal record linked to sexual offences.
Today, he denounces contradictions in the testimonies and an investigation he considers botched. He has appealed to the Federal Court in the hope of having the case reopened.
Source: Le Temps