Asylum seeker who abducted and repeatedly raped 12-year-old to be sentenced

An asylum seeker who abducted and raped a 12-year-old in an attack which sparked protests in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, is facing a lengthy jail term.

Afghan national Ahmad Mulakhil, 23, whose victim said he laughed while attacking her last summer, will be sentenced after he was found guilty of rape and two counts of sexual assault.

Jurors at Warwick Crown Court also convicted him of child abduction and taking an indecent video of the girl during the ordeal near a residential cul-de-sac.

He had admitted a further rape charge before his trial and will be sentenced for all counts at the same court on Friday.

The trial judge said the defendant would receive “a substantial custodial sentence” which would “automatically make him liable for deportation at its conclusion”.

Jurors at the 10-day trial were told that Mulakhil arrived in the UK four months before the rapes and had made an immigration application linked to “problems” he had experienced in Afghanistan.

The trial was not told that Mulakhil arrived in Britain by small boat.

Mulakhil told police he believed the girl was 19 and that she had initiated what was his first sexual encounter.

He faced trial alongside Mohammad Kabir, also an asylum seeker from Afghanistan, who was acquitted of charges of intentional strangulation, attempted child abduction and committing an offence with intent to commit a sexual offence.

Kabir, who was 24 according to court documents at the time of the trial but told jurors he was 22, was cleared after maintaining that he never touched the victim and had no sexual intentions towards her.

The victim, who cannot be identified in media reports, told the trial she was approached in a park by both defendants after playing on swings.

During the sex attacks, the girl said she had told her attacker to stop.

Asked by police what he was saying, the girl responded: “Nothing. He was just laughing.

“I was saying get off me. He didn’t say anything, he just carried on.”

When Mulakhil was convicted, Judge Kristina Montgomery KC said: “He (Mulakhil) will plainly receive a substantial custodial sentence which will automatically make him liable for deportation at its conclusion.”