Gardaí sought Ibrahim Elghynaoui’s deportation in January 2018. He applied for asylum while in custody that April and was released, then stopped engaging with the application. By July 2019, the Moroccan national had accumulated 22 Irish convictions and entered a sleeping woman’s bedroom, strangled her and subjected her to an aggravated sexual assault.
The attack and convictions
After an attempted burglary on 12 July 2019, Elghynaoui burgled another Dublin apartment in the early hours of 17 July. He later entered a woman’s ground-floor bedroom through a partly open window. She awoke with him on top of her. During her escape he strangled her and committed a violent aggravated sexual assault.
A jury convicted him of aggravated sexual assault and burglary in December 2020. He separately pleaded guilty to the earlier burglary and attempted burglary. This was an aggravated-sexual-assault conviction, not rape.
The immigration sequence
The sentencing court heard that Elghynaoui came to Ireland in 2017 and first appeared on Garda PULSE that August. Gardaí submitted a deportation application in January 2018 because he had no immigration status. While in custody on other charges in April 2018, he applied for asylum and was released on the basis of that application.
He subsequently failed to engage and the protection application was closed. By sentencing in March 2021, the court was told that he still had no status and that a deportation order was in place. The public record does not explain who authorised the earlier release, when the asylum file closed, what stopped enforcement or whether the later order remains executable.
Prior record and sentence
Elghynaoui had 33 previous convictions across three jurisdictions, including 22 in Ireland for offences including burglary, knife possession and failure to appear. Reports do not provide the full dated schedule.
On 1 March 2021 Mr Justice Paul McDermott imposed ten years for aggravated sexual assault, seven and a half years for the associated burglary, three years for the earlier burglary and eighteen months for attempted burglary. All run concurrently, so the controlling sentence is ten years.
Public-cost benchmark
Using the Irish Prison Service’s 2024 staffed-space rate of €99,072, the ten-year term gives €990,720; an illustrative term after ordinary one-quarter remission gives €743,040. This €743,000–€991,000 range is not a personal invoice and excludes the 22 earlier convictions, Garda, court, legal-aid, protection-processing, victim-care and eventual removal costs.
Chronology
- 2017: Arrived in Ireland; first PULSE entry in August.
- January 2018: Garda deportation application.
- April 2018: Applied for asylum in custody and was released.
- 2018–2019: Stopped engaging; application closed.
- July 2019: Burglaries and aggravated sexual assault.
- December 2020: Jury convictions.
- 1 March 2021: Ten-year controlling sentence; deportation order reported.
Questions the State should answer
- What risk assessment preceded release in April 2018?
- How many Irish convictions already existed at that point?
- When did officials learn he had stopped engaging with asylum proceedings?
- Why did enforcement not occur before July 2019?
- Were Garda, court, prison and immigration records joined into one risk picture?
- Is removal being prepared before release?