American blogger Cynthia D. Ritchie accuses Rehman Malik of rape

An American blogger living in Pakistan has accused former interior minister Rehman Malik of sexual assault and rape.

In a video broadcast live on Facebook, Cynthia D. Ritchie alleged that one of the party’s senior members had raped her while two others had “manhandled” her at a separate occasion.

The incidents occurred in 2011 when the PPP was in power, she said.

Ritchie further alleged that two other senior party leaders — a federal minister and former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gillani had “physically manhandled” her when the latter “was staying the President House”.

In a subsequent textual post on Facebook, Ritchie said that the alleged rape incident had occurred at the accused’s residence in Islamabad’s Minister’s Enclave in 2011, “around the [time of the] OBL (Osama Bin Laden) incident”.

“I thought it was a meeting about my visa but I was given flowers [and] a drugged drink,” she claimed, adding that she had “kept quiet” about the incident because “who in the [ruling government] would help me against the [accused minister]?”

However, she said she did tell someone about the incident at the US Embassy in 2011, but “due to ‘fluid’ situation and ‘complex’ relations” between Washington and Islamabad, she said the response “was less than adequate”.

Responding to the allegations against him, former premier Gilani asked: “Can a prime minister ever commit such an act at the Aiwan-e-Sadr?” “What was the lady levelling such accusations doing at the Aiwan-e-Sadr?” he continued, adding: “Who gave her the right to accuse politicians like this?”

He said responding to such statements would be “contemptuous”. Gillani said that he may have gone to the Aiwan-e-Sadr to meet the president or a delegation.

The former prime minister said that Ritchie “should be ashamed of herself for saying such things”.