Express News Service

BENGALURU: Former French diplomat Pascal Mazurier was made a scapegoat and his child used as weapon to restrain him from leaving India. This is what the special court concluded on Wednesday while acquitting Mazurier of rape charges.

Mazurier had been charged with raping his minor daughter following a complaint by his estranged wife Suja Jones in June 2012.

The nearly five-year-long trial ended with the Bengaluru sessions court clearing Mazurier and accusing Jones of orchestrating a plan to fix her husband.

“..It is a case wherein Suja Jones, wife of Pascal, intentionally with the help of NGOs and doctors has made the accused as scapegoat in order to restrain him from going out of India.

The conduct of Suja Jones itself shows that her intention was not to take care of the child or the husband, but to connect her husband with the crime. She went to the extent of using the child as a weapon,” said Judge B S Rekha, in the judgment running into 120 pages.

The judge noted that the girl told the investigating officer that her father was very good and she loved him. The maid working at Mazurier’s house and their car driver too appreciated his conduct.

“In this case it is undisputed that because of the behaviour of Suja, the accused was not willing to continue the marital relationship and he wanted to take divorce and custody of the children. Further he was transferred to Cape Town, South Africa,” the judge observed.

The judge ordered that Mazurier be given back his personal passport and service passport after the expiry of appeal period