Haider Ali: Pakistani fugitive guilty of rape, indecency, three years after fleeing Australia
The law has finally caught up with a rapist and former international fugitive who fled to Pakistan while facing serious charges after a night out at a Canberra nightclub.
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Former international fugitive Haider Ali was finally convicted of rape and indency charges on Monday afternoon, more than four years after the fact and three years after he skipped the country for Pakistan.
Ali, 38, a former Canberra public servant, left Australia in the final days of his ACT Supreme Court trial in 2017, where a jury, in his absence, acquitted him of one charge of indecency but could not reach verdicts on a rape and two other indency charges.
He claims he went to Pakistan to see his gravely ill father.
Ali was on the run for more than two years, and was rearrested at Heathrow Airport in 2019, before being extradited to Australia.
Ali showed little reaction on Monday afternoon as a jury forewoman delivered guilty verdicts on all the remaining charges.
Ali was a dual citizen of Australia and Pakistan and had not been required to surrender his passports during his first trial, but was refused bail when he arrived back in Australia.
Ali’s trials heard he met his victim, then in her 20s, on a night out at the notorious Mooseheads nightclub in Canberra’s CBD.
Ali caught an Uber with the woman and her friend, but told them he’d lost his house keys.
He was invited to sleep on the woman’s couch, but snuck into her room and sexually assaulted her.
Ali’s defence, rejected by the jury, was that the woman was drunk, came into the room he was sleeping and made advances on him.
Ali now faces sentencing proceedings in both the Magistrates and Supreme Court.
Justice David Mossop is due to sentence him for rape and indecency in coming months.
He is also due in the ACT Magistrates Court on Wednesday where Magistrate James Lawton is likely to sentence him for failing to appear after he fled Australia.