Singapore:
An Indonesian maid was allegedly raped twice by a neighbour, who then cut and strangled her before throwing her out of the window of a second-storey flat, media reports said Tuesday.
The maid, who was 26 at the time of the alleged attack, survived the ordeal despite suffering serious injuries, the High Court heard in proceedings reported by the Straits Times daily.
The identities of the victim and the accused - a 44-year-old former security guard - were not published on court orders.
The newspaper said the incident took place in September 2009, when the maid stepped outside the apartment where she worked to reach the circuit box located outside after the electricity tripped.
The accused, who lived in the opposite flat, then pushed her into the empty apartment and forced himself on her before cutting her with a pair of scissors and strangling her with a piece of string, the court heard.
Police found the woman lying at the foot of her housing block, seriously injured but alive.
If convicted of the charges which include attempted murder and aggravated rape, the accused could face life imprisonment and up to 24 strokes of the cane.
More than 200,000 women, mostly from the Philippines and Indonesia, work as maids in wealthy Singapore.