Iraqi refugee loses rape appeal

An Iraqi refugee jailed indefinitely for raping three women and attempting to rape a fourth has lost his appeal against his latest conviction and sentence.

Akeel Hassan Abbas Al Baiiaty, 35, was convicted in March by a Wellington District Court jury of raping, assaulting and abducting a 20-year-old woman at a Porirua hostel he was staying at.

At the time of the February attack, Al Baiiaty was on parole after being freed two months earlier from Rimutaka Prison following a nine-year sentence for the knifepoint rapes of two Auckland prostitutes and assaulting a third with intent to rape her in late 1997.

He was sentenced to preventive detention with a minimum non-parole period of seven years for the rape conviction, as well as concurrent sentences of four years' jail for abduction and two years' for assault.

- NZPA