Asylum seeker raped vulnerable teen in Elgin park

An asylum seeker raped a vulnerable teenager at a park in Elgin.

Rapualla Ahmadze was caught on CCTV walking the streets of the town in the early hours of the morning on August 4 last year, before approaching his victim sitting on a bench.

The teenager, then aged 17, later told police that the stranger, who was bearded and spoke with a foreign accent, stopped in front of her and asked if she had a boyfriend.

She said 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 a night and listened to her music.

Ahmadze, 21, pulled her up off the bench and started walking her towards a playground with an arm around her waist and his other hand touching her.

She said: “When we were walking towards the park, I kept thinking I needed 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 angry if she continued to try and get away.

She was taken to a “tunnel” and pushed to the ground and molested.

She was then walked towards the bushes where he used both hands on her shoulders to force her to the ground.

Ahmadze then raped her and ignored her efforts to stop and push him away.

The victim said that afterwards she saw another man walking along a path in the park and raised her voice to get his attention.

The man told the court that when the victim approached him, her hands and arms were shaking. He said: “I felt a sense of scaredness.”

He said: “The size difference between the male and female was noticeable. The female was little and the male was bigger.

“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.”

During a phone call, the girl had told a friend that she had been raped, and the witness suggested she go to the hospital. The victim went to Dr Gray’s Hospital in Elgin and spoke to staff before police were alerted.

At the High Court in Edinburgh, Ahmadze, also known as Rafiullah Ahmadzai, denied raping the teenager at Cooper Park.

He 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 had 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.

During an interview with police last year, he said he did not remember his date of birth but claimed that at the time he was 17. Immigration authorities provided a date of birth of January 2004.

Ahmadze was unanimously found guilty of raping the teenager and was 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.

After the verdicts, the 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 is prepared on him ahead of sentencing next month.