Men 'forced Hannah suspect to have sex'
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A man accused of murdering student Hannah Foster claims he was forced to have sex with her.
Maninder Pal Singh Kohli claimed he was bundled into a car by three men on the night the teenager disappeared.
He said he was taken to a van, where he was forced to have sexual intercourse with a woman, who he now believed to be Hannah.
He told the jury at Winchester Crown Court he believed he had been kidnapped out of 'revenge' because he owed £16,000 to a work colleague.
The 41-year-old father of two told the court that he repeatedly borrowed sums of money from his colleague James Dennis, with whose wife he claimed he was having an affair.
But when Mr Dennis asked for the money to be returned, including a statutory demand from a solicitor, Kohli said he threatened to reveal the secret affair.
Kohli told the trial that on March 13, 2003, the day before Hannah disappeared, Mr Dennis's brother Jonathan threatened him, demanding that he pay his brother back.
The next day Kohli said he went to work as normal before going out for a meal with his wife and children in the evening.
Kohli, who said in court that he was a gambling addict, said that after returning his family to their home, he went to the Mitre pub in Portswood, Southampton.
It was as he was returning to his work van, parked nearby, that he claimed he was grabbed by two men who told him to get in the back of a dark-coloured car.
One man knelt on his back and tied his hands while another sat on his legs and a third man drove the car.
He said: 'The man who had his knee on my back tied my hands, they then blindfolded me.
'I was pleading saying 'I'm asthmatic and I can't breathe, I'm suffocating'.
'I just asked them what they want from me and they said 'It's best you keep listening to us'.
'I will never, ever forget the events of that night, I am still scared and frightened.'
Kohli said the men asked him if he owed money to anyone and he told them that he owed money to Mr Dennis but he would have the money the following week when the sale of his flat was completed.
He said: 'They said they wanted 25 grand by the 18th 'otherwise we will shoot you'.'
He said that after a short period of driving he was taken out of car and told to sit in the passenger seat of a van, where another man shouted at him.
© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.
