Four men have been found guilty of gang-raping a woman after a jury rejected their claims that the woman consented to group sex after one of them met her on Tinder.
The woman said she cried and repeatedly asked the men to stop as three of them one by one entered the bedroom of her apartment in Belmore, in Sydney’s south-west, and raped her in April 2022.
“I said I didn’t want to do it, but I was scared so I did it anyway,” the woman previously told the court.
She had agreed to meet Adam Ahamd Kabbout, 27, who she had met on the dating app. But after she let him into her house and took a shower, she found several other men there whom she did not know.
The woman said Kabbout eventually agreed to leave, but first put his hands on her cheeks and said, “Okay, it’s your loss.”
A jury found Omar El-Sayed, 26, and Mohammed Ali, 22, guilty of two charges of sexual intercourse without consent in the New South Wales District Court on Tuesday.
Rami Katlan, 26, was convicted of one count of sexual intercourse without consent, but acquitted of two counts of aggravated sexual intercourse without consent.
Kabbout was found guilty of four counts of aggravated sexual assault in company, but was acquitted of two other counts.
Adam Ahamd Kabbout, 27, was found guilty of four counts of aggravated sexual assault in company but was acquitted of two other charges
Mohammed Ali, 22, was found guilty of sexual intercourse without consent
The jurors took just over 12 hours to reach their verdict.
Relatives of the men cried and wailed as the group was arrested.
One of the men shouted, “This isn’t right! I swear we’re innocent.”
Although it was not alleged that Kabbout had sex with the woman, the jury found that he had encouraged the other men to do so.
“That way, as a participant, he is liable for what the other suspect did,” prosecutor Danny Boyle told the court earlier.
During the trial it was not disputed that El-Sayed, Katlan and Ali had had sex with the woman, but their lawyers told the court that the woman had given consent.
Police found a used condom in the woman’s bathroom with DNA matching El-Sayed’s, despite him initially telling police he had not been in the apartment.
According to his lawyer, James Trevallion, one of the reasons his client initially lied to police was because he was engaged at the time of the attack.
“After that night he felt ashamed and uncomfortable,” he said.
“He was about to get married. He cheated on his fiancée.”
Documents presented at the trial detailed research conducted by the woman into what was described as “highly sexually explicit” group sex material.
Omar El-Sayed, 26, was found guilty of two counts of rape
Rami Katlan, 26, was convicted on one charge but acquitted on two others
When asked if the searches were evidence of her sexual interests, the woman replied, “I just wanted to know if the women in the videos were crying like I was crying.”
Judge Leonie Flannery told the jury that the strip searches of the woman should not be taken as a sign that she consented to the sexual acts that were the subject of the trial.
“This is not a moral court,” she said.
Mr Boyle told the jury that Kabbout had asked the woman during their conversations on Tinder and later Snapchat if she was interested in having sex with multiple men, but she said she was not.
The case is scheduled for a hearing on October 25.
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