Defendant accused of strangling 12-year-old in Nuneaton protested his innocence to police
24-year-old Mohammad Kabir denies multiple offences including intentional strangulation
An Afghan national accused of strangling a 12-year-old in Nuneaton who was later raped urged police to check CCTV footage to try to clear his name, a court has heard.
Mohammad Kabir said he told the girl "please don't come closer to me" before she went off with Ahmad Mulakhil, who has admitted oral rape but denies two other counts of rape, two counts of sexual assault, child abduction and taking indecent images of a child.
Kabir, 24, denies intentional strangulation, committing an offence with intent to commit a sexual offence and attempting to take a child.
A trial at Warwick Crown Court has been told Mulakhil, who is aged 23 and also originally from Afghanistan, engaged in sexual activity with the complainant in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, last July.
The admitted rape and the sexual offences denied by Mulakhil are all said to have occurred during a "window" of one hour and 18 minutes in which he and the 12-year-old were not seen on CCTV.
Kabir is alleged to have tried to strangle the girl on a canal bridge earlier the same day, having pulled "weird" faces at her.
During the closing evidence of the Crown's case on Tuesday, prosecutor Daniel Oscroft read a translated transcript of a phone call Kabir made to an interpreter during police efforts to communicate with him.
The court heard Kabir told the interpreter: "The girl came, she went with my friend.
"I told her 'don't come to me, please go away, don't come closer'.
"Tell them (the police) to check the camera. Tell them that my heart is exploding. I am brought in here innocently.
"I sent her away. I was telling her 'don't get closer to me you are small'. Tell them that I have not done anything wrong."
In police interviews, the court heard, Kabir mostly answered no comment to police questions, but provided a statement through his solicitor.
The statement read: "I wish to deny my involvement in the offences. I believe it (forensic evidence) will exonerate me. I have been falsely accused and mistaken of crimes that I didn't commit."
The trial continues.