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An alleged asylum seeker from Syria has been jailed over the sexual assault and strangulation of a woman in Cardiff, Wales, earlier this year.
Fawaz Alsamaou, 33, who has been described as a resident of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire but who originally hails from Syria, pleaded guilty to sexual assault and strangulation at Newport Crown Court and has been sentenced to three years and one month in prison. However, given Britain’s lenient judicial system, it is likely that Alsamaou will only serve around half of his sentence in prison.
The court heard that the Syrian asylum seeker followed a woman in the early hours of May 12th after she had a night out in a Cardiff city centre nightclub. He then grabbed the woman by the neck and dragged her under a railway bridge near Salisbury Road, where he stuck his hand up her dress and sexually assaulted her.
Prosecutor Tabitha Walker said, per the BBC, that once she broke free, she was able to call the police, who, assisted by CCTV, were then able to identify Alsamaou and arrest him.
In a statement read before the court, the victim, now 24 years old, said: “I’m always looking over my shoulder and thinking the worst. At the start, I couldn’t work and I didn’t leave my house for two weeks. I feel uneasy when it ‘s dark outside.
“It has really affected my social life and I don’t go out like I used to. I suffer with my mental health generally but this incident really hit that harder. I can barely sleep and I have nightmares relating to it. I’m working to get over it but this isn’t something you can just recover from.
“The impact has pulled me back from doing everyday things and stopped me going out with my friends.”
Alsamaou’s defence team said that despite his guilty plea, the Syrian national refused to acknowledge that he was actually guilty. So far, the police and the British press have yet to reveal whether he entered the UK legally before applying for asylum.
Judge Celia Hughes said: “It was a horrible attack on a woman alone at night in Cardiff. She was entitled to walk home alone at night without being attacked by you, a predatory man.
“You say that you’re a practising Muslim but your behaviour that night casts doubt on the practise of your faith. It must have been a petrifying incident for her and had lasting impact on her life.”
The judge went on to inform Alsamaou that he was “highly likely to be deported” after serving his three-year and one-month prison sentence.
However, heinous criminal migrants, including murderers, rapists, and even terrorists, frequently avoid deportation in Britain, in large part as a result of the country’s continued membership in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
Earlier this week, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage introduced a bill before the House of Commons to withdraw from the ECHR, arguing that Britain must leave the Strasbourg-based institution to reclaim national sovereignty and control of its borders fully to deliver on the democratically decided Brexit referendum.
The bill was rejected as members of left-wing parties, including the governing Labour Party, the anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National Party, and the Greens, banded together to vote it down.
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