Woman identifies rapist from YouTube video 13 years after the crime took place

A woman got her rapist arrested when she managed to identify the man, Khandaker Mohammed Rahman, from a YouTube video 13 years after the incident happened.

The victim was only 13 years old when the crime took place at a mosque in south Wales in 2005. She did not know the man, and only knew that he was called "The Imam."

She was scrolling through YouTube when she stumbled upon a video featuring the man. She took the screenshot of his face from the video and gave it to the police. The police arrested the preacher and a trial in the case took place at Swansea Crown Court.

Prosecutor John Hipkin told the jury that the "highly respected" Muslim leader raped the girl during one of her religious lessons.

"He agreed to let her leave early if she helped him move some books from the library upstairs. On the way there he pushed her into a washroom and she fell on to the floor banging her head," Hipkin said. "The next thing she remembers is Rahman on top of her."

The girl then fled the mosque and stopped going to the place altogether after Rahman assaulted her on two different occasions.

He had previously stood trial twice in 2020, but these trials were abandoned due to his illness. In December 2020, he suffered a heart attack and it was revealed that he had vascular dementia.

Therefore, the jury in Rahman's third trial was asked not to determine his guilt or innocence but to determine whether he did the acts alleged as he was unfit for trial.

The jury found that Rahman did the acts alleged, namely one count of rape of a child under 13, and two counts of sexual assault. But Judge Huw Rees gave Rahman an absolute discharge due to his dementia which implies that he will continue to be cared for by social services.

Rahman, a grandfather to three teenage children, maintained that he was the victim of a mistaken identity, according to a report in The Mirror.