How I Drove A Pakistani Sex Predator Out Of Russia, Only To Find Him Resurface In UK

Svetlana, my deputy, called and asked if she could speak. I was in my office in MISIS University, Moscow, preparing a presentation on recruitment of international students for Russia’s Ministry of Higher Education and Science. In my mind, I was about to rock their world by declaring that Russia’s future for recruitment lay in West/South Asia and South/Central America. Instead, it was my mind that was rocked.

There had been an incident in a student dormitory involving one of our more problematic international students. Ali Mohammed Ansari had gotten a scholarship to study at MISIS in summer 2020, but due to COVID-19 rules, he couldn’t enter Russia until March 2021.

He was one of the first major issues I had to deal with when I took office fully on December 1, 2020. Abusive emails to my colleagues, complaints to our Rector [university head] that our office were blocking him from coming to Russia, accusations of racism against our office to Rossotrudnichestvo [the Russian agency responsible for promotion of Russian culture and education and giving scholarships to study in Russia], and copying the Pakistani Embassy in Moscow in on correspondence.

I was in contact with him from December 1 2020 to the granting of his visa invite in February 2021, as well as inviting him to my office when he arrived. Ali arrived in Moscow on March 25, but didn’t drop by. In fact, he arrived at the dormitory and raised a ruckus, demanding he be given a room of his own. He, again, contacted the rector, the Pakistani Embassy, and Rossotrudichestvo. He got his own room, completely breaking the rules of his scholarship and the norms of the university. Each time, the decisions were made above my head and simply their execution were inflicted on my department. Single rooms are reserved for PhD students and visiting lecturers. That he was given a room showed how terrified Russia was of looking racist.

When Svetlana sat down across the desk from me, I joked that he wanted silk bed sheets and a servant to tuck him in at night. She shook her head solemnly. Ali, allegedly, had sexually assaulted a female student. We, Svetlana and I, discussed social norms, misunderstandings, and what constituted sexual assault. It had been reported to the head of the student accommodation department, to the director of education, and to the rector. The latter pair unofficially shirked their responsibility, their assistants telling me to deal with it.

I phoned the head of student accommodation to send me a copy of the video recording of the alleged assault he did right away. Svetlana and I watched the black and white clip, of a common kitchen and the hallway leading to it. We were in no doubt as to what had happened.

He’d followed her down the corridor, waiting until another student had left the kitchen before coming in with a frying pan as she was prepping her dinner. He made small talk, using a translation app on his phone, but it was clear that she wanted no dealings with him. He came closer, closer still, then grabbed her from behind, and she struggled, luckily breaking free and running away. She was screaming for help as he made his exit in a hurry.

Julia, the young woman, came to my office and I told her I believed her. That I was sorry this had happened and that I would give her full support. Still only 17, she was tiny and terrified. Less than a day had passed since the attack and she said she felt very scared and worried that he would try to do it again.

“I will call the police, be with you when you make your statement, if your parents allow [she was legally underage] and we’ll see how tough this guy is,” I told her.

She cried, said that she didn’t want to cause a fuss and nobody would believe her. Svetlana, one of the most brilliant and effective people in international education in Russia, sat back and stifled her emotions.

Although, as a parent, I wanted to bring down the full force of the law on his head, I had to respect what this young woman wanted. She phoned her parents, in our presence, and told them what happened. They wanted to fly to Moscow right away from Siberia and rescue her from this “filth.” After almost an hour of discussion, they didn’t want to go the legal route, only if there was no other way and even then, they didn’t want to try. Like a coward, I relented. I did, however, promise that he would be gone, one way or another.

Julia left for class and Svetlana to her own office.

The Punishment

Ali was summoned into my office. He arrived in the outer waiting room, where he was made to wait for half an hour. When I was ready, I phoned Svetlana and asked her to return. With her in my office, I messaged my assistant and told her to bring in Ali.

I told him to sit down at a table in front of my desk and came around, shook his hand. He enquired if we were going to apologise for his not getting to Russia in September, or for the behaviour of my staff. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Svetlana smirk with real evil intent. Afterwards, she half-jokingly said she was waiting for me to “put his head through the wall.”

From 20 years of boxing, I know that allowing anger to cloud decision-making leaves one open to a counter attack. I had to remain calm, stick to the plan in my head. A plan Svetlana didn’t know about.

Politely, I told him that there was an allegation that he had made inappropriate physical contact with a female student and that I wanted to know if it was just a misunderstanding. Appearing confused, he said he didn’t know of such a thing. I told him it had happened less than 24 hours earlier, in a kitchen in his dorm, two floors below his room, and that I wanted to know if it was an accident or something else.

“I swear sir, I have never been in this kitchen. I have never been on this floor,” he lied.

Twice more I asked, in different ways, what happened and did he, by chance, misread signals. He told me he had done nothing wrong, had never been in any kitchen, and that some girl could be lying. When he accused Julia of lying, Svetlana’s hands balled into fists.

“Ali, I’m asking now, just, tell me the truth, if something happened, you need to tell me now so that I can defend you or get you out of this situation,” I said, fearing that Svetlana’s fists would be turned on me.

Again, he accused “Russians” of racism, that he would call his “Uncle, who is very big,” and that he would go to the rector. I explained that I was asking him the question because I knew the answer, but that it would be better for him to tell the truth. He, then, turned on me, calling me misled and fooled. I stood up and said I have video footage that we can view together.

With absolute confidence, he stood next to me as I hit play on the video. Svetlana, standing to his right, I’d explained was our witness. He laughed. I paused the video, 10 seconds before he began the assault, and asked him one final time if he wanted to tell me something so that I could help him.

“Did you make advances or grab this girl? The one in the video?”

“No, I didn’t. I respect women,” he said, Svetlana took a deep breath. Ok then, I said, and resumed the video. I watched his face drop as he grabbed a young, unknown to him, girl and tried to force himself on her. I let it play until he fled the crime scene.

“Sit down, now,” I said sharply to him, he did so.

He begged, pleaded, and apologised, his bravado gone. I told him that I wanted to call the police and let them deal with it. Crying now, he claimed that his “uncle” would kill him for such a thing and that he would do whatever I said. Svetlana, whose fists had unballed, looked at me.

“There’s a flight via Dubai tonight, you’ll be on it, there are tickets available. You will never return to Russia, ever, and you can complete your Master’s online, if you wish. But know this, if you are still here in Russia when that flight leaves tonight, I will have you arrested.”

He tried, a last time, to accuse Julia of causing his “excitement” and I stood up. I offered a hand and said, “Good bye, Ali.”

He left that night, dropped out of MISIS by summer 2021, and went to ‘study’ in the UK later in the year.

Julia went on studying, joined our international student’s council, and when I left MISIS in December 2022 was having a normal student experience. But I couldn’t let it go. Barely a day passed that I didn’t think about it and beat myself up.

Last month, I was invited by some of my former students to their graduation in Moscow, where I saw Julia, who had just graduated with 1st class honours. She and her parents invited me to dinner.

Reconciliation

Sitting across from them in a cafe near the university, she still seemed as young and tiny as she did five years before. The talk was of war, peace, and anything that avoided “the kitchen moment,” as she called it.

“Maybe in a month [after the attack] I was calmer and not scared to be alone in, well, alone. In summer, I went to my home and Dad took me to a psychologist and that was very good. It passed as I knew it was just some bad guy and I needed to be more careful,” she said.

Now that she was no longer a child, I felt I was able to unload my guilt and allow myself a moment of ego-centrism.

“I should have called the police and had him done. I’m so sorry I let you down!”

“No!” Her Dad said loudly, then smiled, and repeated it more quietly.

“You did exactly what I wanted,” she smiled, “you got rid of him and you made it safer for us all, Svetlana told us. You have no need to feel bad. It wasn’t you who did it.”

“We’re very grateful to you, please know this,” her Mam said, handing me a tissue as my eyes gave away the emotions that had built inside me.

“Julia is happy and you listened to us and believed her. This, is all we wanted,” her Dad said as I dabbed my eyes.

After hugs, selfies, and humbly accepting gifts from them, I bade them farewell and went to walk in nearby Gorky Park.

After all these years, I felt the painful knot that formed in my stomach every time I thought of “the kitchen moment,” ease a little. Based on that incident, I created a set of guidelines for Russian higher education to improve international student integration. Within them were best practices on instructing international students on cultural norms and acceptable behaviour before landing in Russia. And further steps for universities to take once the students had arrived.

The anger I felt then, and allowed to remain inside me for years, was mostly at those in positions of power within the university who hid when they needed to lead. In every situation when they needed to step up, their strongest traits were hiding and passing the buck.

Five years have passed since that April morning and while I’m still not convinced that I did the right thing, I am at least relieved that Julia flourished. My guidelines were accepted by the Ministry and implemented by the majority of Russian institutions. But I did remove a sexual predator from Russia, only for him to wash up in the UK to repeat the same. That, still, keeps the knot tight in my gut.