Asylum seeker accused of gang-raping lone drunk woman on Brighton beach claims ‘rape is sex’
A failed asylum seeker accused of taking part in the gang rape of an unconscious drunk woman told a jury ‘rape is sex’ as he was quizzed on his understanding of consent.
Egyptian Karin Al-Danasurt said he filmed his two friends raping the woman, who cannot be named, on Brighton beach after his asylum application was rejected.
He told Lewes Crown Court in Hove the 33-year-old victim was so drunk she was being held up by his co-accused as they took her behind a wooden beach hut in the early hours of October 4 last year.
Hanna Llewellyn-Waters, prosecuting for the Crown, told a jury the three men treated the woman like meat and used her for their own entertainment.
Al-Danasurt, who was 25 at the time, said he was filming to gather evidence for his own protection. He denies a charge of rape and of sharing intimate videos.
His co-defendants Ibrahim Alshafe, another Egyptian, and Iranian Kurd Abdulla Amih Ahmadi both deny rape.
Ms Llewellyn-Waters for the Crown asked him: ‘As far as you were concerned, you were witnessing a rape?’
‘I see sex in front of me,’ he told the court.
Karin Al-Danasurt, an Egyptian asylum seeker, said he saw ‘sex in front of me’ as he filmed the alleged rape of a woman on Brighton beach
His co-accused Ibrahim Alshafe has denied raping the woman in the early hours of October 4 last year
‘No, there’s lots of different types of sex, you were witnessing a rape,’ Ms Llewellyn-Waters said.
Al-Danasurt replied: ‘That’s what I saw. Rape to me is sex.’
He was further challenged on whether he saw ‘any distinction’ between someone who is or is not able to agree to sex, and whether it ‘mattered’.
Speaking through an interpreter, he said he did not understand the question.
Pressed, the Egyptian said: ‘I said what I saw. She was closing her eyes, opening her eyes. She wasn’t speaking.
‘The situation wasn’t pleasant, it was bad. She wasn’t able to say anything. They were raping her, but I did not hear anything. I didn’t hear what they told her.’
Al-Danasurt told police he started filming his friends, who all lived in the same asylum hotel, to gather evidence.
Asked why he was filming, he said: ‘It was to stop them and to protect myself. I did whatever I could do to stop them and to speak to them.’
But Ms Llwelly-Waters told him: ‘You did precisely nothing. You went off and had a barbecue with them the next day.’
Al-Danasurt denies rape and sharing intimate videos.
The court heard he went to the Horizon nightclub just before 3.30am where he met the other two men and stayed till closing time at 5am.
The men are said to have filmed themselves getting ready for a night out before catching a bus into Brighton where they met the woman
After getting a bus back to their hotel after the alleged rape, the migrants are said to have filmed themselves having a barbecue in the hotel grounds
The three defendants are said to have partied at their asylum hotel after the attack – with one posing with a sunglasses filter on his face
He told the jury through an interpreter he had tried to pull them off the woman and only filmed the incident to gather evidence for police. He also denied spitting on the woman.
The jury was told more than 15 minutes passed after the end of the third clip shot by Al-Danasurt and one of the men being seen on CCTV leaving the beach.
Tests indicated DNA from three other people was present, with semen belonging to Alshafe and Ahmadi being identified. Tests on a third sample were inconclusive.
Al-Danasurt told the jury his asylum claim had been rejected and he was helping Alshafe after his claim had also been rejected. The three men had a barbecue at their asylum hotel hours later.
The men filmed themselves getting ready for a night out before catching a bus into Brighton; video of them in a room at the asylum hotel where they were all living were shown to the jury.
Three clips filmed by Al-Danasurt of his roommate and another small boat migrant having sex with the woman have also been shown to the jury.
The jury heard Alshafe groped another woman at the Horizon club and told her he was looking for a British bride and to get citizenship.
He said he did not want to go back to his country as he touched the young woman in a Brighton nightclub.
The jury have been told Ahmadi left the Home Office-run hotel in Sussex the day after the barbecue in an ‘unapproved move’ described as ‘absconding’. He was arrested on October 12 in Crewe.
The woman has described her attackers as evil men who had ruined her life.
The court heard Ibrahim Alshafe, 25, arrived on a small boat on June 19, 2025 with Abdulla Amih Ahmadi. Both were housed at the hotel from June 21, 2025.
Al-Danasurt entered the country on October 11, 2024, it was said.
Ahmadi, from Crewe in Cheshire, and Alshafe, who lives in Horsham, have each denied two counts of raping the woman.
Al-Danasurt, also from Horsham, is jointly charged on all four counts of rape as a secondary party encouraging the rape, and has been charged with sharing intimate images without consent. They have denied all charges.
The trial at Lewes Crown Court in Hove continues.