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In fact, Ilunga testified, she actually had a key and entered the apartment without the alleged victim’s consent.

“You chose to lie to the police officer,” the prosecutor pressed.

“Yes,” she replied.

“You’re a few feet away, looking at the officer in the eye, and you lie?”

“Yeah.”

Ilunga told court that she lied to police on the advice of her sister.

The accused ringleader also had trouble with her story about when she saw the phone video of her boyfriend having sex with the alleged victim. It is this sex video that the prosecution contends infuriated Ilunga, who admitted to slashing the alleged victim’s couch with a knife, breaking her chair and kicking the TV over for good measure before leaving the apartment.

But Ilunga says she saw the sex video in a backyard, and nowhere near the scene of the alleged home invasion and kidnapping. She also said she was confused about where she saw the video and had memory problems. She also said watching the sex video made her anything but angry. In fact, she said, it felt as if a soft breeze had calmed her heart.

The prosecutor declared that her story made no sense, and that she was in fact furious.

The accused said she was already angry before she saw the video.

The sex-shame attack has shaken Ottawa’s tight-knit Congolese community.

The case against Ilunga, Safi “Lolo” Mahinja, 27, and Sandrine Tomba-Kalema, 37, is anchored in videos of the attacks that court heard left the young woman fearing for her life.

In a video after the attack, the accused are seen and heard singing along to a song on the radio as they are driving away. They made up their own lyrics to Brigade’s Affaire de la rencune Rondo and by doing so documented their attack, according to the Crown.

All of the accused have pleaded not guilty to kidnapping and sexual assault in the alleged revenge plot in which a 21-year-old woman was targeted for having sex with another woman’s boyfriend. The judge-alone trial continues Tuesday.

gdimmock@postmedia.com

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