An Afghan asylum seeker who raped a vulnerable teenager in a brutal attack in a Scottish park after claiming he would be her ‘boyfriend’ is facing jail.
Rapualla Ahmadze was caught on CCTV walking the streets of Elgin, in Moray, in the early hours of the morning before approaching his victim, who was sitting on a bench.
The teenager, then aged 17, told police that the stranger, who was bearded and spoke with a foreign accent, stopped in front of her and asked whether she had a boyfriend.
She said that when she replied that she did not, he ‘told me that he was my boyfriend now’.
The victim said she was struggling with mental health issues at the time and sometimes went for a walk at night and listened to her music.
Ahmadze pulled her up off the bench and started walking her towards a play park with one arm around her waist.
She said: ‘When we were walking towards the park I kept thinking I need to get away. I tried to pull away from him three times. When I did this the man pulled me more towards him.’
The teenager said she was scared she would make him mad if she continued to try to get away.
Rapist Rapualla Ahmadze was found guilty at Edinburgh High Court
Dr Gray’s Hospital in Elgin
She was taken to a ‘tunnel’ and pushed to the ground and sexually assaulted. The victim was then walked towards bushes where Ahmadze raped her.
The teen said she kept saying ‘no’ to him but added: ‘The man completely ignored me when I was saying this.’
He then forced her to carry out a sexual act on him.
The victim said she got away only when she spotted another man walking along a path and claimed she had to go, raising her voice to get his attention and going over to him for help.
John Donald, 28, told the High Court in Edinburgh that when the victim approached him, her hands and arms were shaking.
‘I felt a sense of scaredness. The size difference between the male and female was noticeable. The female was little and the male was bigger,’ he said. ‘The female came up to me. At this point she was physically shaking and immediately asked for help.
‘She was crying by this time. She was really struggling to catch her breath. It was like she was hyperventilating.
‘She told me she needed help and asked me to walk her somewhere.’
The victim called a friend and told them she’d been raped and Mr Donald then suggested she go to hospital.
She went to Dr Gray’s Hospital in Elgin and spoke to staff who alerted police.
Ahmadze, also known as Rafiullah Ahmadzai, denied the rape on August 4, last year having followed the victim.
The 21-year-old claimed that sex was consensual, the victim was happy and instigated what occurred.
He told the court through an interpreter: ‘When we went to the bushes I wanted to leave but she wanted to have sex with me and then we have sex.’
Ahmadze claimed that he was out in the early hours of the morning because he was hungry and looking for a pizza restaurant.
During his evidence to the court, he claimed he was born in 2007 and was currently aged 18.
In an interview with police last year, he said he did not remember his date of birth but claimed that at the time of the incident he was 17. Immigration authorities provided a date of birth as January 2004.
Ahmadze was unanimously found guilty to raping the teenager and also convicted of threatening behaviour on two occasions between March 1 and April 30, last year at a house in Dufftown, Moray, when he acted aggressively and demanded money and the provision of a new shower.
He was staying at a hotel in Elgin at one stage but was later rehoused.
After the verdicts, trial judge Thomas Welsh KC told him: ‘Custody is inevitable in your case.’
Ahmadze was placed on the sex offenders’ register and remanded in custody while a background report and risk assessment are prepared on him ahead of sentencing next month.
