Siem Reap Provincial Court on Friday heard the case against a 41-year-old Japan­ese man charged with raping a 13-year-old schoolgirl on May 15 in Siem Reap town’s Svay Dang Kum commune.

The accused, Shuji Yamagishi, had been liv­ing in Cambodia for about five years as a Khmer culture re­­searcher and lived in a rented hotel room in the same com­plex as his alleged victim, juv­e­nile protection NGO APLE said in a press release issued on Friday.

Yam­­agishi had a video game player in his room that he used to lure children to spend time with him alone, the victim’s defence lawyer Hong Sambath told the Post.

Yamagishi is ac­­cused of for­cibly abducting the girl and raping her in his hotel room. If found guilty of the offence, he will face between five and 10 years in prison. Sambath said the victim’s family have re­­quested US$10,000 in compensation.

The verdict will be handed down on Decem­ber 5.

To contact the reporter on this story: Phak Seangly at [email protected]