Afghan interpreter Asadullah Najibullah has been jailed for drugging and raping a 14-year-old girl just months after he was allowed to live in the UK
An Afghan interpreter with the British Army has been jailed for drugging and raping a 14-year-old girl just months after he was allowed to live in the UK.
Asadullah Najibullah, 28, plied the girl and her two friends with vodka and cannabis after luring them to his flat to celebrate Bonfire Night.
Najibullah then called for a taxi to pick up her friends, leaving him alone in the flat with the 14-year-old, who smoked some more cannabis.
A court heard he then took off the girl’s clothes and raped her while she lay unconscious on November 5, 2016.
She only became aware of what happened when he sent her a photograph of her passed out and her mother contacted police.
Najibullah, of Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, admitted raping the girl and supplying her with cannabis at Warwick Crown Court.
He was jailed for seven-and-a-half years and ordered to register as a sex offender for life on Wednesday.
The court heard Najibullah had witnessed his policeman father murdered by the Taliban and went on to serve with the British and United States armies for three years.
Najibullah, 28, plied the girl and her two friends with vodka and cannabis after luring them to his flat to celebrate Bonfire Night. He was jailed at Warwickshire Crown Court
He came to the UK in 2015 because of fears for his safety in his home country and was given indefinite leave to remain in the UK.
Judge Anthony Potter told him: ‘You pleaded guilty to two offences, including the rape of a young and vulnerable girl, and the supply to her of cannabis in order to facilitate that rape.
‘This was almost a year after you had arrived in this country, having been relocated here at the instigation of the Ministry of Defence.
‘She [the victim] was young and vulnerable, and you were significantly older, 26 at the time, and had a life experience well beyond her conception.
‘You had vodka which you supplied to her, and you had cannabis which you supplied to all three.
‘That was a considered act, and once her friends had left, you took her telephone.
‘By that stage she was having difficulty co-ordinating, and during the course of the rape she passed out.
‘I have to bear in mind your previous exemplary conduct.
‘You served with the British Army, and with the United States Army, in Afghanistan, and over the course of some three years you provided continued support as an interpreter.
‘You have been witness to a number of events which have had a continuing effect on you, and you were only in this country because the MoD believed there was a risk to your life if you remained in Afghanistan.
‘It is a sad feature of this case that you have chosen to repay that support by behaving in the way you did.’
Prosecutor Matthew Brook said: ‘She had smoked (cannabis) before, but this had a very unusual effect on her, and she had difficulty moving her arms and legs.
‘There was a suspicion there was something else in it as well.
‘In the living room he tried to kiss her.
‘He was aware she was only 14.
‘She said ‘no,’ but he didn’t desist, and she tried to push him away.
‘He started to pull her clothes from her.
‘She was trying to move her arms and legs to stop him, but with little effect.
‘He then got on top of her and raped her.’
The girl was not aware of how it ended, because she passed out, and her next memory was of waking up some time later.
She left the flat, but Najibullah kept phoning her, asking to meet.
He approached her a number of times as she was on her way to school, on one occasion showing her a photograph he had taken of her while she had been unconscious in the flat.
Two weeks later, her mother became aware something was wrong because her daughter kept getting phone calls which seemed to worry her, so asked her what was going on.
When she was told what had happened, she called the police, and Najibullah was arrested.
He denied knowing the girl or having any sexual contact with her – but pleaded guilty after DNA evidence was found on his pyjama bottoms she had put on after the rape.
Graeme Simpson, defending, said Najibullah had ‘put his life and safety at risk’ by assisting the British forces in Afghanistan, and the Ministry of Defence believed he would be in danger if he remained there.
He added: ‘He says today he did wrong and deserves to be punished.
‘He says he’s happy to be punished for what he did.’