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A Quebec judge has found rapper K’naan not guilty of sexually assaulting a woman while she slept in his Quebec City hotel room in 2010.
A woman had accused K’naan, whose real name is Keinan Abdi Warsame, of sexually assaulting her in the middle of the night at the Hilton hotel in July 2010.
During his testimony last March, Warsame denied attacking her at night, saying the pair only had sex in the morning and that it was consensual.
While reading her decision on Wednesday, Judge Julie Roy said she didn’t entirely believe Warsame’s testimony.
The court said it could not, however, declare him guilty beyond reasonable doubt and therefore found him not guilty.
At the end, Warsame thanked the court.
The woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, filed her complaint with Montreal police in May 2022. During the trial, she testified from behind a screen.
She met Warsame in 2010 while he was in town for his performance at the Festival d’été de Québec, after initially connecting with him online.
The rapper had found worldwide success after he released his song Wavin’ Flag the previous year.
The woman testified that once they were in the hotel room, it became clear that they were going to have sexual intercourse. She said she decided not to once she realized she didn’t have a condom.
She said this made Warsame “enormously angry” and that he tried to have sex with her without a condom, but she pushed him off, and he seemed to accept this. They then went to sleep.
She testified she woke up in the middle of the night and felt a weight on her and realized that Warsame was having intercourse with her.
During his testimony, Warsame corroborated some elements of the accuser’s testimony, including the argument over not having a condom.
But he said her assertion that he sexually assaulted her in the middle of the night while she slept was not true.
On Wednesday, Roy noted that both versions of events were plausible and consistent on several points.