Freed man Farah Jama angry over rape DNA bungle
THE 22-year-old who had his rape conviction quashed after a DNA bungle is angry and "depressed" over what happened to him.
THE 22-year-old who had his rape conviction quashed after a DNA bungle is angry and "depressed" over what happened to him.
Farah Jama this afternoon described his ordeal as “very, very bad”.
Prosecutors went to the Victorian Court of Appeal this morning to have Mr Jama's conviction for rape in 2006 overturned after they admitted a “substantial miscarriage of justice” had occurred in his case.
“I feel really depressed and cannot imagine it, what happened,” Mr Jama said.
He said his parents supported him throughout his ordeal and he plans to celebrate tonight.
His lawyer Kimani Adil Boden hailed a “momentous” day for Mr Jama, whose case he described as “tragic”.
“He's been in custody for close to one-and-a-half years on charges he didn't commit. “Justice has finally been done, however, at a price.”
Mr Jama was found guilty of raping a 40-year-old woman at a nightclub in Melbourne's outer-eastern suburbs after the victim was found unconscious.
She had no memory of the crime but Mr Jama's DNA was later found on the victim.
The then 20-year-old denied ever being near the nightclub on that night, saying he was reading the Koran to his critically ill father at his bedside in their home in the northern suburbs.
The only evidence police had was the DNA sample of Mr Jama, which was coincidently taken 24 hours before the alleged crime after he was investigated over another unrelated matter but not charged.
Prosecutors told the court this morning that it had since been discovered that the same forensic medical officer who took the first DNA sample of Mr Jama had coincidently taken the DNA sample from the 40-year-old rape complainant 24 hours later.
They said it had emerged that the officer had not adhered to strict procedure when taking the sample and therefore they could not “exclude the possibility” of contamination.
Therefore they argued the guilty verdict was unsafe and satisfactory and should be quashed.
The court this morning was packed with Mr Jama's friends and family as the Court of Appeal judges discharged his conviction.
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