Indian-Origin Man Found Guilty Of Drugging, Raping 5 Korean Women In Australia: Report
According to the report, Dhankhar recorded his sexual assaults using a camera hidden in his bedside alarm clock and on his phone.
New Delhi: Balesh Dhankhar, a noted figure in the Indian community in Australia with political ties, was found guilty of drugging and raping five Korean women and filming the acts on a hidden camera, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on Monday.
The media outlet described him as “one of the worst rapists” in the city's recent history.
The report stated that a District Court jury in Sydney's Downing Centre on Monday found that the “politically connected predator” lured five Korean women into a web of lies, paralysed them with drugs and hoarded trophies of his callous assaults.
It also reported that he was the former chief of the 'Overseas Friends of the BJP' in Australia, an official group supporting the ruling party.
According to the report, Dhankhar recorded his sexual assaults using a camera hidden in his bedside alarm clock and on his phone.
He cried on Monday as the jury foreman replied “guilty” to each of the 39 charges against him.
The only time Dhankhar cried was while explaining he lied to women because he was lonely after an extra-marital affair broke down. He blamed his loneliness on the “unfulfilling” intimacy of his marriage, the report said.
In 2018, police found dozens of videos of Dhankar with other women, the report added. Sometimes the women are unconscious, other times they struggle and groan as if in a nightmare.
The videos were sorted into folders, each labelled with a Korean woman's name. Then detectives found a series of bookmarks in Dhankhar's browser.
One video went for 95 minutes, a montage of unconscious women subjected to sex, the Sydney Morning Herald report said.
The New South Wales Police officer in charge of Dhankhar's case, Sergeant Katrina Gyde, suspected Dhankhar was living out a disturbed fantasy.
“The videos (bookmarked online) are very similar to the videos you took,” Crown prosecutor Kate Nightingale said in this month's trial.
“Not at all,” Dhankhar replied.
“You thought it was fun... watching Korean women who were unconscious, impaired,” the prosecutor said.
“It is just a porn video, it has nothing to do with the unconscious, impaired,” Dhankhar insisted.
The jury writhed as they watched the videos. At one stage it became too much and they asked to be sent home early, the report said.
Dhankhar will face court again in May and will be sentenced later in the year, the report added.
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