A motodop appeared in Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday over charges that he drugged and raped a teenage girl at a guesthouse in the capital’s Sen Sok district last year.

The presiding judge, Sous Sam Ath, said Yun Ratha, 32, stands accused of raping a 17-year-old university student and waitress last August.

“He took the victim for a walk on the outskirts of the city … and later … to have a drink at [a] beer garden,” Ath said. “[There], he put hypnotic drugs into the victim’s beer glass. When she drank it and lost consciousness, he brought her to sleep at Neak II Guesthouse, [where] he forcibly raped her three times.”

Major Seng Komon, chief of the municipal anti-human trafficking and juvenile protection unit, said “[Ratha] was arrested [based on the victim’s complaint] … when he came to pick up the victim at her rental room to … have sex again”.

According to Komon, a medical report revealed injuries on the victim’s neck and genital area.

Ath said the accused “caused her injuries [when she woke up] and tried to run out”.

Ratha denied all the accusations directed at him, claiming the two had engaged in consensual intercourse.

The verdict is due on March 20.