Afghans who groomed 17-year-old girl with vodka and cigarettes before gang-raping her then fleeing UK in back of a lorry are found guilty

Published: 16:59, 27 June 2026 | Updated: 17:00, 27 June 2026 Four Afghans who groomed a teenage girl with alcohol and cigarettes then gang-raped her have been found guilty. Mehrab Safi, 21, Salman Habibkheil and Awal Ahmadzai, both 19, and a boy, 17, who cannot be named attacked the 17-year-old girl at a house in Bristol in November last year. Safi, Ahmadzai and Habibkheil left the UK in December – concealing themselves in the back of a lorry – following the incident and were later discovered by French authorities in Calais. The rapists, along with the 17-year-old boy, denied any wrongdoing and claimed it was consensual, but were found guilty of grooming and rape at Bristol Crown Court on Friday. The victim met Safi when she went Christmas shopping with a friend in the city's  centre. The rapist tried to lure the girls to his home by offering drugs and a place to charge their phones, but they declined and went home instead. But the pair exchanged social media details and started messaging on Snapchat, where he asked her for nude photos. Just four days later he and Habibkheil arranged for a taxi to pick the girl up from her home in Somerset and take her to an industrial estate in Bristol. She was then taken to Safi’s house, where the men gave her enough alcohol to make her drunk so then each of them could rape her. Awal Ahmadzai (let), Salman Habibkheil (centre), both 19, Mehrab Safi, 21, (right) and a boy, 17, who cannot be named, attacked a 17-year-old girl at a house in Bristol in November last year The victim was sexually assaulted and raped by the four men over several hours.  During the trial, jurors watched a video of the victim in a police interview following the attack. The footage showed she had told Safi she did not want to have sex with him at that point, but he went on to rape her anyway. Habibkheil then raped her before Ahmadzai and the 17-year-old boy did the same. She told police: 'I just wanted to go home. I didn't feel safe. I just wanted to go home. I didn't like it. I just wanted to be at home.' The girl said she had been asleep during two of the alleged rapes and while being sexually assaulted. Jurors previously heard how the girl's mother raised the alarm when she was not at home, with police tracing her to a house in the St Werburghs area of Bristol. Officers arrested the teenage boy when he answered the door to the property, while the three older men fled as police arrived. All four men will be sentenced at the same court on Tuesday 6 October.  Safi was charged with two counts of rape and one count of arranging or facilitating the travel of a female with a view to exploitation. Habibkheil was charged with one count of rape and one count of arranging or facilitating the travel of a female with a view to exploitation. Ahmadzai was charged with one count of rape and one count of sexual assault. The 17-year-old boy, was charged with one count of rape.  The comments below have been moderated in advance. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your details from Facebook will be used to provide you with tailored content, marketing and ads in line with our Privacy Policy.