MIGRANT JAILED FOR SEXUALLY ASSAULTING GIRL, 7, AT HOTEL HAD TALIBAN LINKS
Afsar Safi, 30, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison after being convicted of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a seven-year-old girl at a hotel in Acton, West London.The attack took place in September, where Safi enticed the girl away from her mother using an apple before dragging her along a corridor by the arm.
The child managed to flee after alerting security staff.
During proceedings at Isleworth Crown Court, the young victim told jurors how terrified she had been throughout the ordeal: "I could not tell him to go away because I was too scared.
He put his arms around me.
It feels like he's coming after me all the time.
My nightmares feel like they are real, so I cry sometimes." Safi received a two-and-a-half-year custodial sentence and was placed on the sex offenders register for seven years, although he could walk free on licence after serving as little as six months.
It was revealed Safi had declared in his asylum application that he had been affiliated with the Taliban since the age of ten.
Despite his asylum claim being rejected, he is currently appealing the ruling.
Safi told the court via a Pashto interpreter: "I like children and she was a child.
I asked her where she was going.
She said she was waiting for her mother to go shopping.
I kissed her to the face.
I kissed her out of the love for children.
Back home all the people do that." His barrister disclosed Safi had been taken by the Taliban as a slave and had received only three years of education.
