Canadian woman on holiday held hostage, raped in Amsterdam-Noord home: Prosecutors

Two men are accused of repeatedly raping and extorting a 61-year-old Canadian woman while holding her hostage in a property used by drug users in the Floradorp neighborhood in Amsterdam-Noord, the Public Prosecution Service (OM) revealed in a hearing against the two men on Wednesday. The suspects claim that the woman, who was on holiday, was there of her own free will and that the sexual activity was consensual, Parool reported.

The crime happened in May. The woman was visiting her son, who lives in Amsterdam, from Canada. She went to visit the Red Light District, where she encountered a man and accompanied him and another man to a residence on Nachtegaalstraat in Amsterdam-Noord, where she was robbed of her bag and phone. Then she somehow ended up in the home in Floradorp, where she spent the next two days.

The police raided the home on May 11, after the woman’s son contacted the authorities. They found the woman inside. “Naked under a blanket, all her belongings gone - bag, phone, money, and the clothes she could no longer find. Everything was missing, and she was completely out of it. It took at least two hours for her to regain some sense of awareness. Upon coming to, she immediately said that she had been raped and held against her will,” AT5 quoted from the official report filed by the officers who raided the home.

Blood tests revealed that the woman had cocaine and morphine in her system. When questioned by the officers who came into the home, the woman could remember very little. She did not know how she came to be in the house in Floradorp. She did tell the police that she was held against her will, that she had been forced to undress, that she was made to stay in the bedroom, and that she had been raped multiple times.

Eventually, the Canadian woman told the police that two men had raped her - 44-year-old Bryan B. and 30-year-old Shakil O. She also told the police that they forced her to withdraw cash from the ATM.

The police arrested eight men in the investigation. B. and O. are the only two still in custody.

The two vehemently deny raping the woman. They claim that she had accompanied them willingly, looking to have a good time. They acknowledged that they used a “significant amount” of drugs, but said that this, too, was consensual. One suspect said that when he was having sex with the woman, the other man asked to join in, and she agreed.

“She might have said it because she didn’t want her son to know what she had done,” B. said in court. “She even asked me if she could stay another night. My life is now being turned upside down by a lie.”

The court remanded the two suspects into custody until the next hearing, which is scheduled for February 2.