Kathmandu: Sandeep Lamichhane, the suspended captain of the national cricket team, has been ordered by the court to be remanded in custody.
Kathmandu District Court, Judge Madhav Prasad Ghimire’s bench ordered him to be remanded in custody.
During his detention statement, Lamichhane claimed that the complainant ‘made the accusation at the instigation of someone else’.
His lawyers debated whether the victim was a minor rather than the rape charge. Sandeep’s lawyers claimed that the victim had corrected his date of birth and that she was not a minor.
But the government lawyers said that age is a secondary issue and insisted that the main thing is that the evidence of rape will be established.
Lamichhane himself has admitted in his statement that he went to visit Bhaktapur with the girl, who is called the victim, and stayed at Hotel Kathmandu Inn in Pingalasthan.
Stating that this was also confirmed from the closed circuit (CC) camera footage of the hotel, the public prosecutor claimed that the rape was confirmed.
Lamichhane had claimed that he slept on the chair and did not rape her even though they sat in the room together. But the victim claimed that Lamichhane forced her twice in the night.