Syrian refugee raped student after 21st birthday night out in Glasgow

A Syrian refugee raped a young woman after spotting her as she walked home through Glasgow’s city centre at night.

Mohand Mageed followed the student and began talking to her before he forced his way into a close and sexually assault as she arrived back at her address on February 9, 2025.

The woman had been with friends on a 21st birthday night out and decided to walk home after failing to get an Uber.

She told the High Court in Edinburgh that she felt “a bit tipsy” but was quite capable of walking home and changed from high heels into flipflops.

The woman, aged 21, was shown footage of her approaching Buchanan Galleries after midnight, and of a man sitting on the steps at the shopping centre who began to follow her.

She said: “He was asking me where I was going, where I had been. He offered to carry my shoes, I remember.”

The woman said she did not need or want any help to get home and spoke to him, but was not overly welcoming. She said: “It was an uncomfortable situation.”

She said she did not want to be rude to him after a previous experience when she was followed and got a fright when a stranger became quite aggressive toward her.

She told Mageed, 26, that she had a boyfriend and was hoping that he would back off and leave her alone. As she neared her home she crossed the road and said: “I think I was just trying to speed up and get home.”

She was asked if she was aware the man had crossed the road and replied: “At that point, no.”

He caught up with her before her address.

She told the court: “I remember him barging in behind me. I remember being knocked to the ground. He burst through the door and he came at me very aggressively and I ended up on the floor.”

The woman said her attacker exposed himself.

“I was visibly panicked, upset and saying ‘no’,” the victim said.

“I was probably more shouting because I was scared. I was repeatedly making noise and making it clear it was not something I wanted to do,” she said.

Mageed held her down, sexually assaulted and raped her, before a neighbour ran out of a flat and he fled.

The woman told the court that in the aftermath of the attack she had suffered from anxiety and could not go to university. She said: “I never deserved to be treated like that.”

Mageed, who was staying at the Alexander Thomson Hotel, in Argyle Street, in Glasgow denied raping the woman but was unanimously convicted by a jury.

He told the court that he was from Idlib, in Syria, but arrived in the UK as a refugee in 2024, leaving his wife behind in Syria.

Judge Thomas Welsh KC called for a background report and risk assessment to be prepared on Mageed and placed him on the sex offenders’ register.

Mageed was remanded in custody ahead of a sentencing hearing at the High Court in Glasgow on March 18.