Two 17-Year-Old Afghan Asylum Seekers Sentenced in Leamington Spa Case
Two Afghan teens sentenced in Leamington Spa case, prompting discussions on youth detention and immigration.
Two 17-year-old Afghan asylum seekers, Jan Jahanzeb and Israr Niazal, were sentenced at Warwick Crown Court on Monday to more than ten and nine years in youth detention, respectively, for the rape of a heavily intoxicated 15-year-old girl in a Leamington Spa park in May 2025. Jahanzeb received ten years and eight months, while Niazal was given nine years and ten months. Judge Sylvia de Bertodano lifted normal reporting restrictions on naming the teenagers, citing public interest amid heightened national concern over sexual offences committed by asylum seekers.
Prosecutors told the court that the pair had separated the victim from her friends before carrying out the attack. Distressing footage recorded by the girl on her phone and later played in court captured her sobbing and pleading: “Please help me… let me go… I want to go home.” In her victim impact statement, the girl, for whom this was her first sexual experience, said the assault had “changed me as a person.”
Both defendants arrived in Britain unaccompanied within the past year. Jahanzeb crossed the Channel on a small boat in January 2025 after three failed attempts, while Niazal fled Afghanistan in November 2024 after the Taliban murdered his father, a former Afghan army soldier. The judge acknowledged their traumatic backgrounds but stated that they had “betrayed the interests of those who come to Britain fleeing harm.” She recommended deportation for both upon completion of their sentences.
The case has intensified political debate over immigration and crime in Britain, where sexual offences involving asylum seekers have become a flashpoint. Recent similar convictions, including an Afghan national who pleaded guilty last month to raping a 12-year-old girl in nearby Nuneaton, have triggered protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers and boosted support for the populist Reform UK party. The government is under pressure to curb small-boat Channel crossings as it grapples with public anger over integration and border security.
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