Asylum seeker accused of filming Brighton beach rape claims 'rape is sex'
Karin Al-Danasurt, one of three men accused of targeting a lone drunk woman in a “cynical, predatory and callous” attack on Brighton beach, told a court: “Rape to me is sex”
A failed asylum seeker accused of filming the gang rape of an unconscious, drunk woman on Brighton beach has told a jury, "rape is sex".
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Egyptian nationals Karin Al-Danasurt, 20, Ibrahim Alshafe, 25, and Abdulla Ahmadi, 26, an Iranian Kurd, allegedly targeted the woman in a "cynical, predatory and callous" attack after she became separated from her friends on a night out.
Alshafe and Ahmadi then repeatedly raped the woman on the beach in East Sussex in the early hours of October 4 2025, prosecutors claim.
Al-Danasurt, who was 25 at the time, said he filmed the attack to gather evidence for his own protection after his asylum application was rejected. He denies a charge of rape and of sharing intimate videos. His co-defendants also deny rape.
Read More: Alleged rape victim ‘too scared to go out’ after beach incident, court hears
Jurors heard how the woman had become separated from her friends while on a girls' night out. Prosecutors said the three defendants approached her when she was "staggering in the street" alone.
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.
Ms Llewellyn-Waters asked him: “As far as you were concerned, you were witnessing a rape?”
Speaking through an Arabic interpreter, Al-Danasurt replied: “I see sex in front of me.”
Ms Llewellyn-Waters said: “No, there are lots of different types of sex. You were witnessing a rape.”
He responded: “That’s what I saw. Rape to me is sex.”
She further challenged him on whether he saw “any distinction” between someone being able to consent to sex, and whether that “mattered”. Al-Danasurt said he did not understand the question.
Giving evidence, he told the court he had challenged the men, saying: “What are you doing? This is haram… stop.”
He described the incident as a “horrible situation”, adding it was the first time he had witnessed something like it.
The court heard he said the woman “wasn’t able to breathe normally”. He told jurors he tried to intervene, but the men “didn’t respond”.
But Ms Llewellyn-Waters suggested he had not intervened, telling him: “You did precisely nothing. You went off and had a barbecue with them the next day.”
All three defendants knew each other and were living at a Home Office-approved asylum hotel near Horsham, West Sussex, at the time of the alleged offences, jurors were told.
The trial at Lewes Crown Court in Hove continues.