A failed Somali asylum seeker has been jailed for six years in Scotland after raping a woman as she slept in a flat in Glasgow.
During the trial, the High Court in Edinburgh heard how 42-year-old Abdul Ibrahim had removed his victim’s clothing before raping her at an address in the southwest Glaswegian district of Govan.
The attack occurred on Sept. 23, 2020.
Ibrahim had continuously denied the charge of rape and was ultimately convicted after a trial.
“This was, by any standard, a serious offense,” the presiding judge told Ibrahim at his sentencing hearing on Thursday, reiterating how his victim had been asleep and was “entitled to expect not to be molested in any way.”
In mitigation, defense counsel revealed to the court that while Ibrahim has a criminal record, he had not previously been convicted of any offense pertaining to a sexual nature.
It transpired that the Somali sex predator had been tried for a previous sexual offense back in 2020 for which he was acquitted at trial.
Ibrahim was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment and placed indefinitely on the sex offenders’ register; the judge also warned the attacker would be at a “very high risk of deportation” upon his release.
He had, however, not been deported prior to the offense despite having his asylum application rejected.
It is currently unknown when Ibrahim made his way to Britain nor how long he had resided in the country following the rejection of his asylum application.
Commenting on the sentencing, conservative broadcaster Nigel Farage tweeted: “If this failed ‘asylum seeker’ had been deported after his claim was rejected he wouldn’t have been in the country to commit rape.
“Tory immigration policy is making our country less safe,” he added.
The Home Office revealed plans on Thursday to fast-track asylum applications from certain countries which would remove the need for applicants to attend a one-on-one immigration interview. Instead, applicants will be expected to fill out a 10-page questionnaire, a move critics have described as “an amnesty in all but name.”
Meanwhile, the true extent of the asylum backlog in Britain was unearthed on Thursday after the Home Office data revealed more than 150,000 people are currently residing in Britain awaiting a decision on their asylum application for which some requests date back more than two years.
