Channel migrant ‘drugged, raped and strangled’ 13-year-old girl before fleeing to UK, court hears

Raculi Zubaidullah, 23, evaded pan-European manhunt before boarding trafficker's boat from France to Britain

Leonie Walner's body was found wrapped in a roll of carpet dumped under a tree in central Vienna
Leonie Walner's body was found wrapped in a roll of carpet dumped under a tree in central Vienna Credit: Newsflash

An Afghan immigrant escaped to Britain on a small boat across the Channel after allegedly gang-raping and killing a 13-year-old girl in Austria, an extradition court heard on Thursday.

Raculi Zubaidullah, 23, is accused with three other suspects of drugging Leonie Walner with ecstasy pills then suffocating her before dumping her body in a rolled up carpet. Leonie's body was found on 26 June last year in Weiner Neustadt.

Austrian police arrested the three other men, also immigrants, after they allegedly boasted to a friend about having wild sex with a young girl. The friend immediately reported the crime to the police.

The body of Leonie was found wrapped in a roll of carpet dumped under a tree in central Vienna.

Within hours Zubaidullah had run away, dodging Austrian police. He fled hundreds of miles to Dunkirk in France, evading a pan-European manhunt for him before boarding a trafficker's boat across the Channel to Britain.

Arriving in Dover on the Kent coast, he duped immigration officials by claiming asylum using a false name and was put up by the Government in the Ibis hotel in Whitechapel, east London, which is being used to house migrants.

Acting on a tip-off from Austrian authorities, British police found him hiding in a room at the hotel in late July, little more than a month after Leonie had died.

Raculi Zubaidullah fled continental Europe on a trafficking boat to the UK after a man hunt was launched for him
Raculi Zubaidullah fled continental Europe on a trafficking boat to the UK after a man hunt was launched for him Credit: Gareth Fuller

Zubaidullah faces extradition to Austria for rape and severe sexual abuse of a person under the age of 14.

The court was told on Thursday that initial investigations revealed Leonie met Zubaidullah and one of his accomplices at the Danube Canal, Vienna, on June 25 2021.

They took ecstasy and went back to Zubaidullah's apartment in Donaustadt, in Vienna's 22nd district, where they were joined by two other men, aged 18 and 23.

The men allegedly gave the schoolgirl more drugs to “make her compliant” before raping her and rolling her body up in the carpet. The body was then dumped on the street about 100 metres from Zubaidullah's apartment.

Jonathan Swain, prosecuting, said: “It is alleged that Mr Zubaidullah is suspected of having committed an offence on 25 and 26 June 2021 in Vienna in what is described as deliberate and wilful collaboration with three other named individuals.

“The two offences are firstly having coerced by force an individual to engage in and acquiesce to by administering to her at least seven ecstasy pills and after that performing vaginal intercourse.

“He grabbed and choked her until she was no longer able to breathe and was suffocated and therefore ultimately died as a result.”

District Judge Michael Snow will make a judgement on Wednesday January 12 at 12.30pm.

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