An asylum seeker jailed for raping a woman in London’s Hyde Park is a convicted Islamic terrorist, according to reports. Abdelrahmen Adnan Abouelela, 42, was this week sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison for the rape, which happened in November last year.
Reports claim Abouelela was previously found guilty in his absence of being part of a bomb-making cell in Egypt. He was reportedly given a seven-year jail sentence in May 2015 but managed to escape the country before being convicted. He arrived in the UK illegally in 2023 and claimed asylum for fear of persecution in Egypt – his home country.
According to the Daily Mail, Abouelela and six other men were said to have manufactured explosives to carry out “terrorist” acts.
The men made the bombs in a rented apartment in the 10th of Ramadan City, near Cairo, Egyptian court records show.
It is believed after leaving Egypt, Abouelela lived in Malaysia and Sudan before seemingly claiming political asylum after arriving in Turkey where he has a wife and a child.
He was held at an airport in Istanbul after Turkish authorities rejected his asylum claim in 2019, per reports.
In a video posted online during his detention, speaking in Arabic, he said he was a member of the Egyptian “opposition” and had been detained for 72 days.
In 2019, a report regarding Abouelela’s detention by a Saudi state-owned broadcast revealed Abouelela had membership of the Muslim Brotherhood or one of its affiliates.
The Muslim Brotherhood has been proscribed as a terrorist organisation in nations including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates but not the UK or Turkey – the latter of which has expressed support for the group.
Social media posts suggest Abouelela was allowed to remain in Turkey and it is not clear why he left the country.
He arrived in the UK in April 2023 and claimed asylum for fear of persecution in Egypt where he claims he was held as a political prisoner and tortured.
Abouelela was found guilty of one count of rape on May 22 and was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday.
The married father-of-one approached the victim as she was walking home alone from a night-out in central London at about 9pm and lured her to a secluded spot in the park where he raped her, the court was told.
“You thought absolutely nothing of her,” judge Gregory Perrins told the defendant, whose address was given as a Hilton hotel in Ealing, west London.
Defence barrister Kane Sharpe said Abouelela had been diagnosed with emotionally unstable personality disorder and complex PTSD.
However, the judge stated he found this mitigating factor to be “minimal”, adding: “There is little connection between those circumstances and your decision to rape the victim on that night.
“It’s clear to me you do not believe you have done anything wrong.”
Because he was given a prison sentence of more than 12 months, Abouelela will be subject to an automatic deportation order under the UK Borders Act 2007.