A man who raped a random woman while armed with a butcher knife after breaking into her apartment has been cleared of criminal responsibility.
Khateebulla Mirza was acquitted on mental health grounds by a District Court judge on Tuesday, over the rape in Auburn, western Sydney, in November 2022.
Mirza was also acquitted of indecently touching a woman’s breast in the inner western suburb of Marrickville on the same day as the attack in Auburn, and of touching a woman on the rear outside a building in Zetland the previous month.
A court was previously told there was no doubt the 37-year-old committed the acts but he was under the delusion he was in a video game at the time.
He pleaded not guilty to eight charges, including sexual touching without consent, aggravated sexual intercourse without consent and assault.
A man who raped a random woman while armed with a butcher knife after breaking into her apartment has been cleared of criminal responsibility on mental health grounds.
The court heard testimony from two psychiatrists who had treated Mirza and were of the opinion that his mental state meant that he did not know the acts were morally wrong.
Professor David Greenberg, appearing as a prosecution witness, told the court that Mirza thought the incident in which he raped the woman was part of the “game”, that they were both participating in it and that he had no control over his actions. .
“Although he knew the legal wrongfulness and understood the nature of his actions, the quality of his actions, he was acting on a psychotic, delusional belief system in which he did not know the moral wrongfulness of his behavior,” Professor Greenberg said. Court.
Mirza also reported that he felt overwhelmed from around 2020, because he believed former New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian was monitoring him and had come off television as a hologram, telling him to quit his job.
Defense psychiatrist Dr Adam Martin told the court that Mirza reported smoking cannabis daily and drinking a large amount of alcohol in the lead-up to his offending.
Dr. Martin reported that Mirza told him that “the voices kept telling me that if you do this, you will unlock the next stage of the game” and “the person you are doing it to is part of the game, which were digital versions.” , that they were consenting to it’.
The year before the attacks, the court was told Mirza spent time involuntarily in a psychiatric hospital.
Delivering his decision, Judge Ian Bourke noted that, although Mirza is not criminally responsible, his actions would have a profound and lasting impact on his victims.
Subject to further submissions from the parties, Mirza will be committed as a forensic patient under the control of the Mental Health Review Tribunal and will not be released while he is still considered a risk to himself or the public.
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