Four Afghan nationals have been found guilty of gang raping a teenage girl in the latest in a series of horrific immigrant sex crimes to rock Britain.
Mehrab Safi, 21, Awal Ahmadzai and Salman Habibkheil, both 19, and a 17-year-old male were all convicted by a Bristol Crown Court jury on Friday of raping their 17-year-old victim in November last year.
The three adults fled the home where the attack occurred when police arrived, and hid in a truck to cross the Channel illegally into France, but were tracked down by French authorities in Calais and brought back to the UK to face justice.
The court heard the girl was Christmas shopping with a friend at Cabot Circle Shopping Centre when they met Safi, who offered them drugs and invited them to his house. They refused but soon afterwards he added her on Snapchat and asked her for explicit photographs.
Four days later he and Habibkheil arranged for her to travel from Somerset to Bristol via taxi, then transported her to Safi’s house on the St Werburghs area of the city, and plied with vodka until she was drunk.
She was then repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted over the next several hours.
The victim’s mother reported her missing, and police officers traced her to Safi’s home where they arrested the 17-year-old when he answered the door.
Prosecutor Ed Hetherington told the court Safi, Habibkheil and Ahmadzai managed to escape and travelled to Birmingham and London before leaving the country concealed in the truck, and filmed themselves on their mobile phones while inside.
“In a deeply unusual turn of events, the defendants Safi, Habibkheil and Ahmadzai, chose to use this mode of transportation to leave the UK rather than enter,” he said.
“Unfortunately for them, they were discovered by the French police in Calais.”
Sally Helliwell of the Crown Prosecution Service said: “The young victim in this case was targeted, groomed, and then lured to an unfamiliar city, miles from home in the dead of night.
“Isolated and alone, she was plied with alcohol and then raped and abused over several hours by four different people. It was clear throughout that she did not consent.
“Thankfully the three men who fled in such a cowardly manner were swiftly returned to the UK to face justice.”
Safi was found guilty of two counts of rape and one count of arranging or facilitating the travel of a female with a view to exploitation, and Habibkheil was convicted of one count of rape and one count of arranging or facilitating the travel of a female with a view to exploitation.
Ahmadzai was found guilty of one count of rape and one count of sexual assault, and the 17-year-old was found guilt of one count of rape.
They will be sentenced on October 6.
Header image: Left to right, Safi, Ahmadzai and Habibkheil (Somerset and Avon Police).
The post Four Afghan immigrants found guilty of gang raping teenage girl in UK first appeared on The Noticer.
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