(BBC) An asylum seeker who raped a woman in Hyde Park has been jailed for eight and a half years.
Abdelrahmen Adnan Abouelela, a married father of one, approached her in the central London park as she was walking home alone from a night out in November 2024. He then lured his victim to a secluded spot where he raped her.
Abouelela, who claims he was held as a political prisoner and tortured in Egypt, is in the UK illegally, Judge Gregory Perrins told Southwark Crown Court.
Judge Perrins told the 42-year-old defendant, whose address was given as a hotel in Ealing, west London: “You were driven purely by your own sexual desires.”
