31-year-old Ilaitia Nalawa who was convicted of raping a 9-year-old girl in Nakasi in 2015 will appear in the Fiji Court of Appeal on the 20th of this month.
Nalawa was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment after he was convicted of raping the girl in July in 2015.
Nalawa’s lawyer Panapasa Tawake has filed for an appeal against the conviction and sentence.
Tawake has filed the appeal on the grounds that the trial judge had erred in law and fact when he said continuously throughout the trial that the identification of the perpetrator was not an issue.
Tawake says the judge knew that there were grave inconsistencies in relation to the identification of the real perpetrator.
The appeal also states that the trial judge erred in facts to acknowledge the doubt concerning the DNA evidence that found no match of Nalawa’s DNA on the items recovered from the scene including the complainant’s clothes.
Tawake also said in his appeal that the trial judge erred in law when he sentenced Nalawa to 18 years with a non‑parole period of 17 years, which was above the sentence tariff of rape.
