Three asylum seekers who entered Britain in small boats have been convicted of gang-raping a woman on Brighton beach – after telling a court that ‘rape is sex’.
Iranian-born Abdulla Ahmadi, 26, and Egyptians Karin Al-Danasurt, 20 and Ibrahim Alshafe, 25, repeatedly raped the 33-year-old woman behind a beach hut in the early hours of October 4 last year.
The trio behaved like a ‘predatory pack’ after spotting the drunk victim as she staggered along the promenade when she became separated from her friends after a night out.
Approaching her in the street at around 5.45am, two of the men engaged her in conversation, and just four minutes later they could be seen on CCTV camera walking her towards a ramp down to the beach.
The woman was then led behind a Beach Patrol shack and, as she drifted in and out of consciousness, Ahmadi and Alshafe brutally raped her.
The pair were joined by Al-Danasurt who filmed her on his phone, laughing and repeatedly calling her: ‘Dirty b****, dirty b****.’
At one point he grabbed hold of her face, forced open her mouth and spat in it while encouraging his friends to do the same.
When quizzed on his understanding of consent by prosecutors, Al-Danasurt said he thought ‘rape was sex’ – adding the woman was so drunk she could barely stand.
Two of the attackers were failed asylum seekers but were still living in a Home Office-approved hotel in West Sussex while the third man was under investigation for immigration offences.
CCTV footage shown to the jury showed the group chatting up and groping other women throughout the night, including a friend of the woman they raped.
Prosecutors said the men had been ‘on the prowl’ and had worked like a ‘predatory pack’ – adding they hadn’t seen their victim as a human being but as a piece of ‘meat’.
Giving evidence, the victim told the court: ‘I was begging them to stop and they wouldn’t. Every time I close my eyes I can see them laughing at me. Every night it bothers me. They thought it was funny. It wasn’t consensual at all. They have literally ruined my whole life.
‘I didn’t say they could do that. My skin crawls because of what they did to me. They’re evil and they’ve ruined my life.’
In the wake of the verdicts, Border Security and Asylum Minister Alex Norris said: ‘Once sentencing has taken place, we will move to deport them off British soil.’
Ibrahim Alshafe, 25, from Egypt was found guilty of raping the woman on Brighton beach
Karin Al-Danasurt, an Egyptian asylum seeker, said he thought ‘rape was sex’ during the trial
Al-Danasurt grins as he was led to the prison van after court on Wednesday
The men filmed themselves getting ready for a night out before catching a bus into Brighton where they met the woman
All three defendants were found guilty of rape at Hove Crown Court on Thursday. They showed no reaction as the verdicts were read out, and then translated.
The jury of seven women and five men took around 16 hours and 38 minutes deliberating before reaching their verdicts.
On Wednesday, Al-Danasurt was pictured grinning while being led from the court to a prison van after a day of jury deliberations.
It was heard that Ahmadi and Alshafe had met when then came to the UK from France on the same small boat on June 19 last year, while Al-Danasurt had arrived separately in September 2024.
On the day of the attack, Alshafe’s asylum application had been refused, although he claimed in court he did not know this prior to the group’s outing.
The court previously heard the asylum seekers filmed themselves getting ready and partied at nightclubs before they targeted their victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
The three men left the Horizon nightclub after it closed at 5am and targeted the lone victim who had also been partying in the same bar.
She had become separated from her friends and left the club on her own. She described herself as ‘paralytic drunk’ and said she had no recollection of how she came to be on Brighton beach.
Hanna Llewellyn-Waters, prosecuting said the men had been ‘on the prowl’ that night and had worked like a ‘predatory pack’.
She said they hadn’t seen her as a human being but as a piece of ‘meat’.
She said: ‘She was repeatedly abused for their sexual gratification and entertainment and that entertainment was obtained in part through her degradation.
‘They wanted sex and that could be achieved by being with someone who was in no state to resist them.’
She added: ‘[The complainant’s] state was such that it rendered her extremely vulnerable and indeed, to all intents and purposes, pretty much incapacitated.’
The three defendants partied at their asylum hotel after the attack – with one posing with a sunglasses filter on his face
Egyptian Ibrahim Alshafe, 25, was one of three asylum seekers who came to the UK illegally convicted by a jury today
Karin Al-Danasurt, 20, also Egyptian, raped the woman and filmed her on his phone while calling her a ‘dirty b****’
Iranian-born Abdulla Ahmadi, 26, was also convicted of rape – the jury deliberated for more than 16 hours
Ibrahim Alshafe (left) and Abdulla Ahmadi (right) are escorted to a prison van after a day of jury deliberations on Wednesday
Ahmadi is pictured being interviewed by police after the woman reported what had happened
The victim said she remembered drifting in and out of consciousness while being repeatedly ‘abused’ by three men.
She described being powerless to stop them and said her body felt so paralysed she thought she may have had her drink spiked earlier in the night.
The jury heard that in video interview she said: ‘So at first it was like I was coming round and someone had their finger in my mouth and like was rubbing their finger in my mouth and it was almost like I kept falling back asleep.
‘Like every time I, I was there but I wasn’t, like it was such a weird experience. Like I’ve been drunk, I’m 30-odd, I’ve been drunk many a times, I’ve never had this like feeling before.
‘And like as I could remember like I could see a light in my face, like do you know like when you put a flash on a like on the camera on an iPhone and I could hear a foreign accent saying ‘Dirty b****, dirty b****’.
Alshafe claimed during the trial he lost his virginity while taking part in the gang rape of the woman.
Asked by prosecutors if he had had sex before, he said: ‘No, it was the first time. I was happy that I’m trying something like that for the first time.’
Al-Danasurt was questioned during the trial about why he filmed the assault on Brighton beach.
Hanna Llewellyn-Waters, prosecuting for the Crown, asked him: ‘As far as you were concerned, you were witnessing a rape?’
‘I see sex in front of me,’ he told the court.
‘No, there’s lots of different types of sex, you were witnessing a rape,’ Ms Llewellyn-Waters said.
Al-Danasurt replied: ‘That’s what I saw. Rape to me is sex.’
He was further challenged on whether he saw ‘any distinction’ between someone who is or is not able to agree to sex, and whether it ‘mattered’.
Speaking through an Arabic interpreter, he said he did not understand the question.
After getting a bus back to their hotel after the alleged rape, the migrants filmed themselves having a barbecue in the hotel grounds
Pressed, the Egyptian said: ‘I said what I saw. She was closing her eyes, opening her eyes. She wasn’t speaking.
‘The situation wasn’t pleasant, it was bad. She wasn’t able to say anything. They were raping her, but I did not hear anything. I didn’t hear what they told her.’
Al-Danasurt told police he started filming his friends, who all lived in the same Home Office-approved asylum hotel, to gather evidence.
Asked why he was filming, he said: ‘It was to stop them and to protect myself. I did whatever I could do to stop them and to speak to them.’
But Ms Llwelly-Waters told him: ‘You did precisely nothing. You went off and had a barbecue with them the next day.’
The men had filmed themselves getting ready for a night out before catching a bus into Brighton on the night of the attack.
In one clip, Alshafe could be seen speaking to an unknown blonde female in Horizon nightclub in the early hours of October 4.
As she could not speak Arabic and he could not speak English, the pair communicated via the Google Translate app.
In a series of texts she asked him where he was from and told him he was welcome in the UK but questioned his motive for coming to the country.
She asked him what his ‘goal’ was for the future and how he saw his life panning out in Britain.
Reading from the message, Hanna Llewellyn-Water, prosecuting, said the woman asked: ‘Is your only goal here to marry a British woman?’
He replied: ‘I am in this country. I will build my future, meet a woman, get married, have children have and become a citizen.’
Another CCTV clip from earlier in the evening, showed Ahmadi and Alshafe in the foyer of Revolution nightclub.
Here, Ahmadi groped one of the complainant’s friends, putting his arm around her waist.
Meanwhile, Al-Danasurt put his arms around an unknown brunette woman and stroked her bottom.
A video of them in a room at the asylum hotel where they were all living was shown to the jury.
They got a bus back to their hotel after the rape, before filming themselves having a barbecue in the grounds.
In the clip shown to the jury, one of the defendants appears to be smoking while they cook meat on a portable barbeque.
Ahmadi left the hotel the day after the rape and moved to an address in Crewe, Cheshire, where he was arrested on October 12, the court heard.
The move had not been approved by the Home Office and Ahmadi had been marked as ‘absconding, self-departing’ from the accommodation.
On October 13, Alshafe and Al-Danasurt, both of Lower Beeding, near Horsham, were arrested by police at their hotel.
Alshafe and Ahmadi were both found guilty of two counts of rape by jurors on Thursday.
Al-Danasurt was also found guilty of all four counts of rape as a secondary party by encouraging and filming the ordeal.
He had also received a caution from police for criminal damage in April 2025, the court was told.
It was heard at a hearing in November that the Egyptian had been convicted of murder in his home country, but this could not be heard at trial as his legal team disputed this, claiming it was in fact his brother who had been convicted of the crime.
At the time, prosecutors told the court Al-Danasurt had been convicted of murder in his absence in Egypt, adding that the basis of his asylum claim was that he fled the country to ‘evade a lengthy custodial sentence’.
After the verdicts, Ms Llewellyn-Waters told the judge all three defendants were in the process of appealing against their refused asylum applications.
They will be sentenced on July 15.
After the case, Border Security and Asylum Minister Alex Norris said: ‘My thoughts are first and foremost with the victim of this appalling crime, and with all those who have been affected by it.
‘What she endured is deeply disturbing, and I commend her bravery in coming forward and reporting these vile individuals. I share the public’s outrage in their horrendous actions.
‘The perpetrators have now been rightly convicted, and justice has been delivered by the courts. Once sentencing has taken place, we will move to deport them off British soil.’
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: ‘These illegal immigrants are dangerous sexual predators who attacked a young woman on a beach.
‘Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants are flooding into the UK each year by small boat and we have no idea who they are or what their history is.
‘The majority are young men and many have committed rape, sexual assault and even murder – with some sexual assault victims girls as young as just 12 years old.
‘We must completely stop illegal immigrants from entering the UK.
‘The only way to do this is the Conservative plan to leave the European Convention on Human Rights and deport all illegal immigrants within a week of arrival.
‘But Labour is too weak to do that.’
