A 35-year-old Indian man has been charged with three counts of sexual assault at a military base in Afghanistan, the US Department of Justice said in a statement.
Although the incident is said to have taken place sometime in August, charges were filed againstNaik in November by a court in the District of Columbia.
Naik was charged with two counts of aggravated sexual abuse and one count of abusive sexual contact. The indictment said that while working in August at Operating Base Fenty, an American base built around the airport in Jalalabad, a city in eastern Afghanistan, Naik allegedly entered the room of a 24-year-old American woman and sexually assaulted her.
Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski of the US Justice Department’s Criminal Division confirmed the charges against Naik recently, three months after US Magistrate Judge Harvey ordered his detention and deportation from Afghanistan to the US under Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA) provisions via a video teleconference.
Soon after being brought to New Jersey by military transport aircraft, Naik was placed in the custody of US deputy marshals.
The US Army’s Criminal Investigation Command and the Washington Field Office of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation are probing the case.