A young woman has testified before a jury that three friends of a man she met on Tinder showed up at her apartment unannounced and raped her as she stepped out of the shower.
The now 25-year-old described the alleged multiple attacks as she testified against all four men in Sydney’s Downing Centre court on Wednesday.
Omar El-Sayed, 26, Rami Katlan, 26, and Mohammed Ali, 22, face two charges of sexual intercourse without consent and two charges of aggravated sexual assault in company.
Adam Ahamd Kabbout, 27, is charged with six counts of aggravated public assault.
Kabbout is not accused of having sex with the woman at her home in Belmore in Sydney’s south-west, but the prosecution alleges he encouraged the other three men to rape her.
El-Sayed, Katlin and Ali, who had not met the woman before the alleged rapes, say the sex they had with her was consensual.
They have all pleaded not guilty to attacking the woman in the early hours of April 16, 2022, after they were at Olympic Park for a Good Friday NRL match between the Bulldogs and Souths.
The alleged victim said she met Kabbout on Tinder about a year before that night and that the two had exchanged messages on Snapchat, during which he used the name “Adam Kay.”
A young woman has told a jury that three friends of a man she met on Tinder showed up at her apartment unannounced and gang-raped her as she stepped out of the shower. Adam Kabbout was photographed outside court on Wednesday
“It was just little texts — ‘Hey, are you free? Are you doing something?’ — just stuff like that,” she told the jury.
On April 15, 2022, the woman went to dinner in town with friends and communicated with Kabbout via Snapchat.
“He asked if I had time and I knew the dinner wouldn’t be long, so I said, ‘Later tonight, yes,’” she told the jury.
The woman, who gave her testimony via an audiovisual connection, was shown transcripts of her conversation with Kabbout, in which he allegedly told her: ‘They are only three guests’.
“When he said it was just three guys, I assumed it was three guys having sex,” she told the jury.
“I said maybe not.”
The woman, who was 23 at the time, said she first met Kabbout in real life outside her apartment and that once inside, they went straight to her bedroom.
“He told me to come over,” she said. “And then we were kissing. And then I said I was going to take a shower.”
Omar El-Sayed, Rami Katlan (above) and Mohammed Ali are facing two charges of sexual intercourse without consent and two charges of aggravated sexual assault in the company.
After showering for 10 to 15 minutes, the woman said she found Kabbout and four other men (the fifth man has not been charged) outside her bedroom.
“I went back to my room and closed the door,” she said. “Adam came in and I said, ‘Who are they? What are they doing here?’ and ‘I don’t want them here.'”
I think he rejected me and my questions. [Kabbout] just said, “It’s okay, don’t worry about it.”
The woman said that Kabbout left her bedroom and that she heard the men outside having a conversation in a language she did not understand.
Kabbout then returned to the bedroom with one of the group members, she told the jury.
“He was like, ‘Suck him off,’” she said.
“I went closer to them and said I didn’t want to do it, I didn’t want to do anything, but I was scared and he said just do it, so I did.”
The woman stated that after Kabbout left the room, she had sex with the man.
“I remember just saying I didn’t want to do this, I didn’t want to do this,” she said.
“When he was done, he went to the bathroom and Adam came in.”
The woman said that when she told Kabbout she wanted the men to leave, he replied, “Not yet.”
She told the jury that a second man entered the room and raped her in the same manner as the first, and that he was then followed by a third.
The woman said she was in tears as she was allegedly raped by the second and third men and continued to protest what was being done to her.
Omar El-Sayed, Rami Katlan and Mohammed Ali (pictured above outside court) say all sex they had with the woman was consensual
During the alleged attacks, Kabbout walked in and out of the bedroom, the woman said.
“He was just watching what we were doing,” she said. “He just came and watched.”
The woman said that Kabbout came back in after the third man left her room.
“I said, ‘I don’t want to do it anymore, can you please leave?'” she told the jury. “He said, ‘Okay, your loss,’ and then they left.”
Kabbout’s lawyer April Francis previously told the jury that the woman had “clearly misled” police about her communications with Kabbout and the nature of their relationship.
Mrs Francis said there was a dispute over the fact that the woman had not consented to Kabbout inviting the other men to the apartment.
“She gave the suspect the impression that she was interested in these types of sexual acts,” Francis said.
“That explains why the subject came up… before the suspect arrived at her home.”
Adam Kabbout (above) is not accused of having sex with the woman in her western Sydney apartment, but the prosecution alleges he encouraged the other three men to rape her
Ms Francis also said that before and after the alleged rapes the woman searched the internet for “very explicit” material showing multiple men having sex with one woman.
James Trevalion, representing El-Sayed, said on Wednesday that there was no dispute over his client having sex with the woman, but he continued to maintain that it was consensual.
Mr Trevalion told the jury at the time of the alleged offences that El-Sayed was about to get married and that they should not make a moral judgement about his having cheated on his fiancée.
Angela Cook SC, for Katlan, said her client had consensual oral sex with the alleged victim on one occasion.
Ms Cook said the woman had committed “dishonesty and deceit” and told a friend after the alleged rapes: “Only two of them actually fucked me”.
Ali’s lawyer Julia Hickleton told the jury that her client had consensual sex with the complainant and that “this is not a one-sided story”.
You may find it a bit confronting that [the alleged victim] “He voluntarily participated in consecutive sexual acts with three men,” she said.
“This is not a court of morality. It is a court of facts.”
The trial before Judge Leonie Flannery continues.