Three Libyan soldiers who were jailed after admitting to multiple assaults on women in Cambridge last year are now seeking asylum in the UK.

The attacks, carried out last October on three women near Corn Exchange Street, were carried out by soldiers Mohammed Abdalsalam, Ibrahim Naji El Maarfi and Khaled El Azibi after stealing bikes and cycling 10 miles from Bassingbourn Barracks, where they were being trained.

Two of the men, Abdalsalam and El Maarfi, who also admitted to indecent exposure and threatening behaviour to police respectively, were jailed for 10 months, whilst El Azibi was jailed for 12.

But Cambridgeshire Police have now said that having served their sentences, the men are applying for asylum in the UK.

Although the possible grounds for asylum have not been released by police, experts say that they could claim that there is a “fear of persecution” as a result of bringing Libya into disrepute.

The move has been met with dismay from one of the three victims. Solicitor Richard Scorer said: “It’s difficult enough to recover from a situation where you’re set upon by a stranger and sexually assaulted.

“But if you have to do that in the knowledge that that person has now come to this country and is trying to build a life here, I think that is very, very, very difficult to deal with, and completely wrong and unacceptable.

“I think it’s a breach of their human rights and really we can’t allow this to happen.”
Cambridge Labour MP, Daniel Zeichner, has also expressed concern. Speaking to BBC News, Zeichner said: “Most people would be astonished that people who committed sex crimes be rewarded for it. It’s a pretty bitter blow to those who have suffered pretty horrible attacks.”

However he also added: “Everyone has the right to be treated the proper way,” while attacking the Ministry of Defence for the “appalling mess” that lead to the attacks being committed.

The Home Office, although saying it would not respond to individual cases, said that those from abroad who break British laws “should be removed from the country at the earliest opportunity”.

The controversy comes after a string of attacks in Cambridge last October that made national headlines, following which two other Bassingbourn soldiers, Moktar Ali Saad Mahmoud and Ibrahim Abugtila, were jailed for 12 years for the rape of a man in his 20s on Christ’s Pieces.

The attacks resulted in the group of 300 Libyan soldiers training at the barracks being sent home, and plans to train up to 2,000 Libyan soldiers in Cambridgeshire over the course of 15 months being scrapped.

The soldiers were being trained with the ultimate aim of being sent back to Libya to support the new regime, following the fall of Muammar Gaddafi during the Arab Spring in 2011.

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