Asylum seeker followed young woman in city and sexually assaulted her under bridge

AN ASYLUM seeker visiting Cardiff followed a young woman out of a club before strangling and sexually assaulting her under a city centre bridge, a court heard.

- BRYANA FRANCIS

The victim was walking home from a night out in the early hours of the morning on May 12 last year when she noticed she was being followed by Fawaz Alsamaou.

Having left Pulse nightclub on Churchill Way at around 4am, the woman continued to walk towards the Cathays area of the city, but was grabbed by the neck and pulled to one side underneath the railway bridge near Salisbury Road.

Alsamaou, aged 33, then put his hand under her dress, grabbed her crotch and pulled it for seven seconds.

At a sentencing hearing at Newport Crown Court on Friday, October 31, prosecutor Ms Tabitha Walker said the victim tried to push Alsamaou away and eventually managed to do so before running from the scene and calling the police.