An asylum seeker who said he filmed an alleged rape by two others on Brighton beach because he was “trying to stop it” has been accused of telling a “pack of lies” in court.
Karin Al-Danasurt has been giving evidence over three days in a trial at Hove Crown Court over his part in the alleged rape in the early hours of October 4 last year.
The Egyptian national, 20, alongside co-defendants Egyptian national Ibrahim Alshafe, 25, and Iranian national Abdulla Ahmadi, 26, allegedly targeted the woman in a “cynical, predatory and callous” attack.
Alshafe and Ahmadi are accused of repeatedly raping the woman on the beach of the East Sussex city, while Al-Danasurt filmed the incident.
On Tuesday, during cross-examination of his evidence, he denied allegations of spitting on the woman, calling her insulting names, and laughing or encouraging his co-defendants during the incident.
Jurors were told the woman had been separated from her friends while on a girls’ night out, and prosecutors said the three defendants approached her when she was “staggering in the street” alone.
The court heard that footage shows the woman falling down twice.
Al-Danasurt had told jurors that by capturing three videos during the alleged attack, he was trying to get Alshafe and Ahmadi to stop and also to “defend himself” so he could tell someone what happened.
Before he filmed the incident, he said he tried to “grab them away” but nobody responded to him, the court heard.
But in cross-examination by prosecutor Hanna Llewellyn-Waters KC, she questioned his tone in the videos and asked him “what was so funny”, and asked what he was doing in the three and a half minutes before he started filming.
She said the prosecution is suggesting Al-Danasurt is telling a “pack of lies” and is looking after himself.
The prosecutor added: “I suggest what you’ve done in your evidence is put on a performance with a string of lies to hide your true involvement.”
But the defendant replied: “What I said is totally the truth, I’m not lying, I’m telling the truth.
“If I wanted to lie, I would have said I didn’t go to Brighton from the beginning.”
The court had heard that Al-Danasurt, while he was filming, said that “God will expose you” to the two men, which he said were “powerful” words but Ms Llewellyn-Waters said an interpreter has said the phrase can be used in a dismissive way.
“You found it entertaining, didn’t you?” she said.
He replied: “No, there was no entertainment at all”.
He has also been accused of slapping the complainant, which he denies.
The court heard that in Ahmadi’s statement to police, he said Al-Danasurt began slapping the woman and spat in her mouth after the incident.
But responding in court on Tuesday, Al-Danasurt said: “No, that has never happened.
“He said that before because I gave the video to the police and once he knew I gave the video to the police, of course, he will accuse me and he will say everything against me,” he said.
The court also heard Al-Danasurt bought juice and croissants for his co-defendants after the ordeal and around 12 hours later had a barbecue with them, despite him alleging that Ahmadi had threatened him that evening.
Of the barbecue, he said: “It was their idea, they told me ‘come with us to do this’, I didn’t refuse.”
A video of Al-Danasurt wearing filtered sunglasses in a selfie and a lit barbecue hours after the alleged rape has been shown in court.
At the time of the alleged offences, all three defendants knew each other and were residents at the Cisswood House Hotel in Lower Beeding, near Horsham, West Sussex, which was Home Office-approved accommodation for asylum seekers, jurors have heard.
Ahmadi, of Crewe in Cheshire and Alshafe, of Lower Beeding, have each denied two counts of raping the woman.
Al-Danasurt, also of Lower Beeding, is jointly charged on all four rape counts as a secondary party “encouraging the rape by his actions at the scene, including filming it”, and has pleaded not guilty to all four charges.
He denies a fifth count of “sharing intimate films” without the complainant’s consent.
The charge relates to an allegation that Al-Danasurt sent recordings of the alleged rapes to Ahmadi’s phone via Snapchat shortly after the incident.
On Tuesday, Alshafe also began giving his evidence of the events and said the complainant approached him and Ahmadi, and asked how they were before kissing and touching them both.
Asked if she appeared drunk, Alshafe said no and that from her touching them and laughing their understanding was she wanted to have sex.
He added: “That is everything that came to my mind because of that and she also said something like ‘come to sex’.”
The trial continues.
