An Iraqi asylum seeker has received a short sentence for raping a woman in Swansea, Wales, and will have to serve two-thirds of it in custody before being released on licence and deported — maybe.
26-year-old Turkey Al-Turkey, gamely described as a “Swansea man” by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in its low-profile coverage of his sentencing, was observed attacking his unconscious victim outside the Welsh city’s Civic Centre by a security camera operator who attempted to deter him by taking through a public address system and calling “Get off her. She’s drunk. I’m calling the police.”
Prosecutor Carina Hughes suggested that “Due to to her level of unconsciousness on CCTV, the prosecution felt it went over and above what we expected and anticipated from intoxication,” with use of a date rape drug such as Gamma Hydroxybutyrate (GHB) suspected.
“What’s happened to me cannot be erased and will remain with me for the rest of my life,” the victim said in an impact statement read to the court.
“He has killed the spontaneous, joyful, carefree version of myself and only time will tell whether these traits return in full,” she lamented.
Judge Paul Thomas only saw fit to impose a sentence of eight years and eight months on Al-Turkey, however, and he will not have to serve all of it in custody — typical in the British criminal justice system — becoming eligible for release on licence after two-thirds of it is completed.
“Importantly I fully expect that you will be deported from this country immediately upon your release,” the judge said at the sentencing — although in reality this is by no means guaranteed, with the British government’s record when it comes to successfully deporting so-called Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) being extremely poor and getting worse.
The BBC’s decision to describe the Iraqi migrant as a “Swansea man” in its headline drew heavy criticism on social media.
“[H]e’s not a ‘Swansea man’ is he, BBC? He’s an asylum seeker from Iraq,” complained one user, urging the publicly-funded broadcaster to “just call it as it is & stop being so spineless.”
“He’s not from Swansea tho[ugh], is he?” opined another. “He’s an asylum seeker.”
“Is Swansea in Iraq?” asked another sarcastically.
Such questionable reporting is not uncommon at the BBC, however, with the corporation having previously drawn criticism for its description of the Albanian murderer of a 7-year-old girl in a public park on Mother’s Day as a “Bolton woman”.
The migration background of the killer was not even referenced in the body of this BBC article, as in Al-Turkey’s case, with the BBC telling Breitbart London that its “headline refers to a ‘Bolton woman’ because her last given address was in Bolton” and insisting that “We refer to ethnicity, race or sexuality only where we believe there is a direct relevance to the case in hand or where this is specifically referenced in court or by the police as part of a witness appeal. Otherwise, we would not consider this a detail that should automatically be included in our reports.”
Some subsequent reports did admit that Skana was “originally from Albania”, however — although not until several paragraphs into the text.