A trial at Hove Crown Court heard the woman was targeted by the men as she was “staggering in the street” and was “incapacitated” in the early hours of October 4 last year.
Egyptian national Ibrahim Alshafe, 25, and Iranian national Abdulla Ahmadi, 26, took her behind a beach hut in the East Sussex city where they raped her while Karin Al-Danasurt, 20, filmed it.
Ministers have vowed to deport the trio, who all arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel by boat, after they are sentenced in the summer.
Border security and asylum minister Alex Norris said: “Once sentencing has taken place, we will move to deport them off British soil.”
Alshafe and Ahmadi were both found guilty of two counts of rape by jurors on Thursday.
Egyptian Al-Danasurt was also found guilty of all four counts of rape as a secondary party by encouraging and filming the ordeal.
Asylum seeker Karin Al-Danasurt encouraged and filmed the ordeal (Sussex Police/PA)
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Details of his past emerged at a plea hearing in November last year, ahead of the trial, when his defence team contested the conviction, saying it was in fact his brother who had the conviction for murder, not him.
At the time, prosecutors told the court Al-Danasurt had been convicted of murder in his absence in Egypt, adding that the basis of his asylum claim was that he fled the country to “evade a lengthy custodial sentence”.
Jurors returned their verdicts in the five-week trial after more than 16 hours of deliberation.
Eight security guards stood in the dock behind the defendants and their interpreters as the verdicts were given.
The defendants showed no reaction as the verdicts were delivered, though Alshafe had his head down afterwards.
Prosecutor Hanna Llewellyn-Waters KC told jurors in the trial: “Frankly, to these defendants, the complainant was meat.
“She was repeatedly abused for their sexual gratification and entertainment.
“They wanted sex and that could be achieved by being with someone who was in no state to resist them.”
She said the woman told police she recalled being spat on, kicked, and her throat being grabbed during the attack, as well as men laughing.
Asylum seeker Ibrahim Alshafe was found guilty (Sussex Police/PA)
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Giving evidence in the trial, the woman told the court: “It wasn’t consensual, it was not consensual, they are evil and they have ruined my life.”
Being cross-examined from behind a screen in court, she also cried as she said: “It’s the filmer’s face I see every time I close my eyes, laughing at me.”
In a video police interview played to jurors, recorded on October 13 2025, the victim said she had been at a bar with friends until around 3am before going to a nightclub near the beach.
She said she regained consciousness lying on the beach and thought she was going to be killed.
In the recording, she said: “I closed my eyes because I thought ‘oh my God, they’re actually going to kill me’, I can hear all these voices and I can’t stop them.”
At the time of the incident, all three defendants knew each other and were living at Home Office-approved hotel accommodation for asylum seekers near Horsham, West Sussex.
The court heard Ahmadi and Alshafe met each other on a small boat from France arriving in the UK on June 19 2025, while Alshafe and Al-Danasurt, who arrived in the UK on October 11 2024, were roommates at the hotel.
After the verdicts, Ms Llewellyn-Waters told the judge all three defendants were in the process of appealing against their refused asylum applications.
The trio got ready at the hotel before getting the bus into Brighton on the night of October 3.
Abdulla Ahmadi being questioned by police officers (Sussex Police/PA)
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A Snapchat video shows them at around 7.30pm at the hotel in front of a mirror with Ahmadi sorting a durag – a close-fitting cloth tied around the top of the head – on Al-Danasurt, who gestures to the camera, filmed by Alshafe smiling.
Earlier on the night out, the friends went to a bar and nightclub on the beach where Alshafe was chatting to a woman via Google Translate about his hopes to marry a woman and have children and get citizenship in the UK.
She said she would like to be friends with him but did not believe he just wanted that “because you’re touching my breasts”.
To which he replied: “I am forced by your beauty.”
The prosecution suggested what really happened on the night on October 4 was Alshafe had been knocked back by several women and was “on the prowl” with the co-defendants.
“That night, Mr Alshafe, you were nothing more than a nasty little predator,” Ms Llewellyn-Waters said to him in court.
After the attack the men returned to their hotel by bus and later had a barbecue together in the evening, around the same time the woman was waiting to be medically examined.
A video of Al-Danasurt wearing filtered sunglasses in a selfie with a lit barbecue was also shown in court.
Asylum seeker Abdulla Ahmadi met co-defendant Alshafe on a small boat (Sussex Police/PA)
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After the three men were convicted, Ms Llewellyn-Waters told the court there were “ongoing inquiries at a very senior level” about Al-Danasurt’s crimes abroad, adding he had also been given a caution in the UK for criminal damage in April last year but said she was “not in a position” to provide any more detail.
Detective Chief Superintendent Richard McDonagh said: “These three predatory men took advantage of an extremely vulnerable woman, subjecting her to a prolonged, harrowing ordeal.
“I do not underestimate the strength and courage it required to report this to the police and support the investigation as she dealt with the lasting impact of that morning’s incident. Thanks to this woman’s resolve, we have been able to bring her attackers to justice.”
Holly Morton, deputy chief Crown prosecutor from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “This was an utterly appalling and violent attack on a woman completely unable to consent to any sexual activity.
“These men targeted her in a cynical, predatory and callous way, dragging her to a secluded spot, before repeatedly raping her for their own sexual gratification.
“None of us can begin to imagine what the woman went through that night. She described drifting in and out of consciousness and hearing the men laughing.
“Thanks to the bravery of the victim in reporting what happened to her that night, we have been able to bring these dangerous men to justice and ensure that they cannot target women again.”
A further count of “sharing intimate films” without the complainant’s consent which Al-Danasurt faced was withdrawn on Thursday after it was established the offence can only be tried in a magistrates’ court.
The three men are due to be sentenced at the same court on July 15.
Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservative Party, told reporters in Pembrokeshire that she was “disgusted” after hearing about the case.
She said: “There are people who are taking our country for a ride, are coming here trying to claim asylum, which is for genuine refugees, when really they come here to do harm to others.
“This is why it’s really important that we solve this small boats crisis, that’s why I’ve changed the Conservative Party policy.
“As a woman in particular, I do worry so much about a lot of men coming here with attitudes that are backwards and medieval and thinking that they can do whatever they like.
“We need to be very tough on them… We want to see consequences for people who assault, people who rape.
“I do not want women in this country being worried about what’s going to happen to them.
“For a very long time, people were feeling very safe on the streets of the United Kingdom.
“In every nation, this is changing. We need to get back to the country we used to be.”
