EXCLUSIVE
A woman who says she was gang-raped in her home by three friends of a man she met on Tinder had discussed the possibility of having group sex with them earlier that night.
Snapchat exchanges between the woman and Adam Kabbout, the man she originally matched with on Tinder, were presented at the four men’s rape trial in the New South Wales District Court.
Omar El-Sayed, 25, Rami Katlan, 26, and Mohammed Ali, 21, have pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual intercourse without consent and two counts of aggravated sexual assault in company.
Kabbout has pleaded not guilty to six counts of aggravated sexual assault in connection with what happened at the woman’s apartment in Belmore, south-west Sydney, in the early hours of 16 April 2022.
The 26-year-old is not charged with having sex with the woman, but the Crown alleges he is criminally responsible for encouraging the other three men to rape her.
El-Sayed, Katlin and Ali (none of whom had met the woman before going to her apartment) insist that any sex they had with her was consensual.
That night, Kabbout, El-Sayed, Katlan and another man had watched Souths beat the Bulldogs in a Good Friday NRL match at Olympic Park and Ali later joined them.
In the hours before the alleged rapes, Kabbout and the woman sent messages to each other on Snapchat which the Crown says included a suggestion that she have group sex with his friends.
A woman who says she was gang raped in her home by three friends of a man she met on Tinder had discussed the possibility of having group sex that night. Adam Kabbout, who is accused of encouraging his friends to rape the woman, is pictured leaving court
“That’s what they like,” Kabbout wrote.
When the woman replied, “Really?”, he replied, “Yes.”
Woman: ‘Eep. Maybe not, to be honest.’
Kabbout: “They’re just three guys”
Woman: ‘I don’t know, sorry LOL’.
Kabbout, then 24, told the 23-year-old woman: “You look just like me, hahaha.”
She said, ‘Hahaha, eh, tempting, but maybe not.’
After meeting Kabbout at her house, the woman asked him: “Do you have any condoms?”
Kabbout said no and the woman asked him, “What size are you, lol?”
He replied, “Big,” and she said, “I’ll check when I get home, but I think it’s normal.”
In the hours before the alleged rapes, Kabbout and the woman sent each other Snapchat messages that prosecutors say included a suggestion that she have group sex with his friends. (A reproduction of their messages based on court evidence is shown above.)
In another exchange, the woman asked Kabbout, “Do you smoke?” and then added, “It’s okay, it’s fine (because) I’m not sober,” when he said yes.
The woman, now 25, told a jury of nine men and five women on Wednesday that when Kabbout arrived at her home, they both went straight to her bedroom.
“He told me to come over to where he was sitting,” she said. “And then we kissed. And then I told him I was going to take a shower.”
After showering for 10 to 15 minutes, the woman said she found Kabbout and four other men outside her bedroom. The fifth man had been playing soccer with the group and is not charged with any crime.
“I went back to my room and locked the door,” she said. “Adam came in and I asked him, ‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ and ‘I don’t want you here.'”
“I think he dismissed me and my questions. (Kabbout) just said, ‘It’s okay, don’t worry about it.'”
The woman said Kabbout left her room and heard the men outside having a conversation in a language she did not understand.
Kabbout then returned to the bedroom with one of the group, he told the jury.
“He tells me something like, ‘Suck it,'” she said.
Omar El-Sayed, Rami Katlan (above) and Mohammed Ali are on trial on two counts of sexual intercourse without consent and two counts of aggravated sexual assault in the company of a man.
“I approached them and told them I didn’t want to and that I didn’t want to do anything, but I was scared and he told me to do it and so I did.”
The woman said that after Kabbout left the room, she had sex with the man.
“I just remember I kept saying I didn’t want this, I didn’t want to do this,” she said.
‘When he finished he went to the bathroom and Adam came in.’
The woman said that when she told Kabbout she wanted the men to leave, he replied: “Not yet.”
She told the jury a second man entered the room and raped her in a similar way to the first and was then followed by a third.
The woman said she was crying while she was allegedly raped by the second and third men and continued to protest what they were doing to her.
During the alleged assaults, Kabbout was in and out of the bedroom, the woman said.
“He just watched what we did,” she told the jury. “He just came and watched.”
After meeting Kabbout at her home, the woman asked him: “Do you have any condoms?” Kabbout said no and the woman asked him: “What size do you have?” (Their messages are reproduced above, based on a court test.)
The woman said that after the third man left her room, Kabbout returned to the room.
“I said, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore, can you please go away?'” she told the jury. “He said, ‘OK, you lose,’ and then they left.”
Kabbout’s attorney, April Francis, told jurors Tuesday that the woman had “positively misled police” about her communications with Kabbout and the nature of their relationship.
Ms Francis said it was disputed that the woman had not agreed to Kabbout inviting the other men into the apartment.
“She led the defendant to believe that she was interested in such sexual activity,” Ms Francis said.
“That explains why the issue was raised… before the accused arrived home.”
Ms Francis also said that before and after the alleged rapes, the woman searched the internet for “very graphic” material showing several men having sex with a woman.
Adam Kabbout (above) is not charged with having sex with the woman at his apartment in Sydney’s southwest, but the Crown alleges he encouraged the three other men to rape her.
James Trevalion, for El-Sayed, said on Wednesday there was no dispute over whether his client had sex with the woman, but maintained the activity was consensual.
Mr Trevalion told the jury that at the time of the alleged offences El-Sayed was about to get married and they should not make moral judgements about him cheating on his fiancée.
Angela Cook SC, representing Katlan, said her client had engaged in a single consensual act of oral sex with the alleged victim.
Ms Cook said the woman had “demonstrated dishonesty and deceit” and told a friend after the alleged rapes: “I was actually only caught by two.”
Ali’s lawyer, Julia Hickleton, told the jury that her client had consensual sex with the complainant and that “this is not a one-sided story.”
“You may find it a little confronting that (the alleged victim) willingly engaged in sequential sexual acts with three men,” he said.
“This is not a court of morality. It is a court of facts.”
The trial before Judge Leonie Flannery continues on Monday.
