OXFORD MAN ACCUSED OF RAPE DENIES ATTACK AFTER NIGHT OUT IN 2014
Update 01/05/2026: Salam Karis, aged 35, has been sentenced to 13 years in prison following a hearing at Oxford Crown Court.Karis was also issued with an indefinite restraining order preventing any direct or indirect contact with the victim.
He will also be on the sex offender register for life.
He was previously found guilty of three counts of rape following a trial at the same court.
Karis raped a young woman, who was visiting friends in Oxford for a night out, in Oxford city centre in 2014.
Officers from Oxford’s CID department conducted a thorough investigation at the time and identified Karis as a suspect.
He was arrested on the same day of the offence and charged, following which he was brought before the courts who released him on bail and Karis fled the country.
Thames Valley Police ensured his Fail to Appear warrant was re-issued, so when he did re-enter the country in Kent in July last year, he was arrested.
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A young woman has told a court she was raped during a night out in Oxford more than a decade ago.
Salam Karis, formerly of Alden Crescent, Headington, has denied raping the woman in 2014 when she was 19.
Karis, 34, is on trial at Oxford Crown Court, in connection with an incident at a towpath near Hythe Bridge Street on January 19, 2014.
The allegation is that he raped the woman after they had been at The Bridge Nightclub.
The jury heard the defendant says it is a case of mistaken identity.
On Tuesday, January 6, the jury was shown an interview the woman gave to police the day after the incident.
Describing how she felt at the nightclub initially, she said: "I was very drunk.
I was feeling quite happy, I was dancing." She was asked about her interactions with two men at the club.
She said: "They asked me how old I was and I said I was 20.
I was very drunk, but I don't remember anything sexual at the club.
"The more I think about it, I have no doubt in my mind that the second guy raped me.
I don't know about the first guy." The jury then heard live evidence from the woman herself, now 31.
The court heard the woman had been visiting a friend in Oxford at the time of the incident after travelling up from Brighton.
The woman told the jury that her friend had just turned 18 and they were planning to go out.
She said: "We were dropped off near a newsagent's.
We went in to get cigarettes.
There was a conversation inside, but I wasn't part of it." She said: "We were dancing as a group." She indicated her friend knew one of the men and her friend's partner was at the club.
She stated she was led away from the club by a man in a blue jumper towards the canal towpath and a wooded area.
The court heard the woman described the man who raped her as wearing a white jumper.
Defense barrister Kellie Enever suggested her recollection may be hazy due to high alcohol consumption, to which she replied she remembers what happened.
The trial continues.
