An 18-year-old migrant from Morocco has pleaded not guilty to raping a woman on the steps of the Copenhagen court where he is set to face trial for the alleged attack.
The 18-year-old North African was presented for a preliminary hearing at the Copenhagen magistrates’ court, where he was accused of sexually abusing and raping a woman on the steps of the very same court building.
The Moroccan gave a not guilty plea to the charges, which assert that on October 10th at around 6 a.m. he engaged in sexual activity with a woman against her will, Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet reports.
The judge in the case ruled that the Moroccan would be remanded into custody for the next 27 days as prosecutors say that he may flee if left at large.
According to the Danish news website Avisen, the Moroccan is not the only North African in the Copenhagen area to be facing rape charges in recent days.
A 22-year-old Algerian national was also in court in the area of Frederiksberg after being charged with raping a sleeping woman on Tuesday morning. The woman is said to have been unconscious after drinking alcohol and not able to consent to the sexual activity.
The Algerian is said to have also pleaded not guilty to the charges and been remanded in custody as the judge in the case believed him to be a flight risk.
Earlier this year, it was revealed that migrants make up as many as one in four of those convicted in rape cases in Denmark, with Syrian nationals accounting for the largest share of sex attackers among them.
“The figures clearly show that we have a problem of an ethnic slant when a [relatively large proportion] of foreigners are convicted of rape, just as we have an obvious problem when more than half of the inmates in the country’s closed prisons and detention centres are immigrants, descendants or foreigners,” Minister of Justice Nick Hækkerup said.