By Perry Duffin
Warning: Graphic content
One of four Sydney men accused of gang-raping a woman after they watched an NRL game in the city’s west told police the alleged victim blocked him from leaving the room and “started doing shit without my consent”, a trial jury has heard.
Another told police he had never had contact with the woman or been to her unit, despite his DNA being found in a condom in her bathroom, but then reversed his story.
Adam Kabbout has been accused of orchestrating the gang rape of a woman in her Belmore unit.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
Adam Kabbout sat alongside his three friends, Mohammed Ali, Rami Katlan and Omar El-Sayed, in the dock of the Downing Centre District Court as a jury of 14 were assembled on Tuesday afternoon.
All four men have been charged over the alleged gang rape of the 23-year-old woman on the evening of Good Friday 2022.
But unlike Ali, Katlan and El-Sayed – Kabbout is not accused of any actual sexual acts with the woman.
Instead, Kabbout is standing trial accused of orchestrating the alleged sexual assault, ushering his friends into the woman’s bedroom, one after another, while she allegedly cried and begged them to stop.
Crown Prosecutor Danny Boyle told the jury Kabbout had matched with the woman on the dating app Tinder, and the pair consensually shared intimate images and messages on the app Snapchat in April 2022.
Rami Katlan leaves Downing Centre District Court.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
Among Kabbout’s messages to the woman, the jury heard, were invitations to have sex with three of his friends who “all look like me”.
The woman replied that it was “tempting, but maybe not”.
Kabbout organised to meet the woman at her Belmore unit for sex in the hours after he and his friends watched the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs lose to the Rabbitohs on Good Friday that year.
Prosecutors say Kabbout arrived alone before the woman went to take a 15-minute shower. When she got out of the shower she heard the voices of men in her living room, the court heard.
“I don’t want them here,” she allegedly told Kabbout.
Kabbout, however, urged El-Sayed into the room and watched them have sex.
“I want to stop,” the woman allegedly told Kabbout.
Mohammed Ali sprinting from the Downing Centre District Court.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
“Not yet,” he allegedly replied.
Kabbout allegedly then brought Katlan into the room to do the same, and then Ali.
The woman was crying and telling the men she did not want to have sex, the court heard.
“I need you guys to go,” the woman allegedly said.
“Your loss,” Kabbout allegedly replied, putting his hands on her cheeks.
A five-second clip of one of the men having sex with the woman was recovered from one of the men’s phones, the jury heard.
Prosecutors said Ali denied doing anything non-consensual with the woman and, instead, claimed she had acted without his consent when interviewed by police later that year.
“She started doing shit without my consent, I tried to get out of the door but she was standing, like on her knees, back to the door,” Ali told police, Boyle said.
“What am I gonna do like barge (to) the door nah I’m not going to hurt a female.”
Ali claimed the woman wrapped her legs around him and he “couldn’t get out” of the room.
El-Sayed denied being in the woman’s apartment, said he did not have sex with anyone that evening and there was no reason for his DNA to be in her home.
“Why would it?” he allegedly told police under questioning.
A DNA profile matching El-Sayed was allegedly found in a condom in the ensuite bathroom bin, and a profile matching Ali was found on the woman’s bedsheet, the prosecutor said.
El-Sayed changed his story, Boyle said, telling police in August 2022 that he had sex with the woman, but it was consensual.
Kabbout’s barrister, April Francis, opened the defence case later on Tuesday, saying the complainant had “misled police” about the nature of her online relationship with Kabbout.
Francis told the jury the woman had looked up pornography involving multiple men and one woman.
“[Kabbout] had no sexual intercourse with the complainant, he did not pressure the complainant to have sexual intercourse with him, and any physicality alleged between them is, on the complainant’s account, consensual,” Francis said.
Kabbout and Katlan left court with their faces masked and behind sunglasses. Ali and El-Sayed ran from the courthouse trying to cover their faces.
The case will run for four weeks.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.