Anchorage man sentenced to 25 years in prison for sexual assault

A 31-year-old Anchorage man was sentenced on Thursday to spend the next 25 years in prison for sexually assaulting a woman in 2014, his conviction based on DNA evidence that surfaced more than a year after the crime.

"This is one of those cases where forensic evidence and DNA doesn't lie," Gustaf Olson, assistant district attorney, said in an interview Thursday afternoon, after the sentencing.

Olson stood in a courtroom that morning asking Anchorage Superior Court Judge Kevin Saxby to sentence Asad Nur to 25 to 35 years in prison, while the defense attorney asked for a shorter sentence. Even 10 years would be "manifestly unjust," said Nur's public defender, Chong Yim, who argued that Nur could be rehabilitated.

A jury found Nur guilty of first-degree sexual assault and second-degree assault earlier this year.

Jade Baker, an Anchorage Police Department detective investigating the case, wrote in a November 2016 court document that Nur had sexually assaulted a woman in his Anchorage apartment in 2014.

Baker wrote that the woman told officers she was drinking beer with two friends at Barry's Baranof Lounge the night of Sept. 5, 2014, when a man she did not know came over and sat with them. He asked if they wanted to go to another bar, and they said yes, Baker wrote.

The woman told police that she got into a taxi with the man and he told her that the two of them would first go to his apartment to have a drink, Baker wrote.

Police later identified the man as Nur. Olson said Thursday that while Nur worked as a taxi driver in Anchorage "at some point," Nur was not "on the clock" that night. They were both passengers in the taxi, Olson said.

Baker wrote that the woman told police that once the two got to the man's apartment, he "grabbed her by the wrist and began to pull her toward the bedroom."

The woman repeatedly told him no and hit him in the arm, but the man grabbed her by the throat, held her down and sexually assaulted her, Baker wrote. The woman thought she was going to die, Baker wrote.

The woman told police that the man then told her she had to go and said he would kill her if she talked to police, Baker wrote. The man called a taxi, walked her outside and gave her $15 for the taxi fare, according to Baker.

The woman told the taxi driver that she had been raped and he called the police, Baker wrote.

An investigation initially led police to the wrong suspect — another man whom the woman had identified in a photo lineup, according to Baker.

But DNA test results ruled him out as a suspect and the case went cold, Olson said.

Then, in late February 2016, Baker got a letter from the state crime lab that said Alaska's DNA Index System had found a DNA match to the sample taken from the woman during the 2014 sexual assault investigation. That match was to Nur, Baker wrote.

In September 2015, court records show, Nur was convicted on an unrelated assault charge. Under state law, Olson said, the offense allowed authorities to take a DNA sample from him and enter it into the statewide database.

According to the court document written by Baker, Nur lived next door to the man who was originally selected from the photo lineup. They were both of Somali descent and had dark skin, dark hair and a similar facial scar.

Nur was just 1 inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than the other man, Baker wrote.

Police interviewed Nur in October 2016 and he denied knowing the woman. He offered another DNA sample, Baker wrote. Olson said that one also matched the sample taken from the woman.

On Thursday, a Somali interpreter translated the court proceedings for Nur. Yim, Nur's public defender, argued the sex was consensual and the woman displayed "inconsistent behavior."

Speaking through the interpreter, Nur told Judge Saxby that he was not treated fairly during the trial and asked to appeal his case so he could prove he was "convicted without justice." He said another man was suspected of the crime first.

"They didn't even recognize me. Nobody recognized me until later on," he said. "I just need justice."

Yim declined to comment after Thursday's sentencing.

Saxby told Nur he has the right to appeal.

In delivering his sentence, Saxby said "the people of Alaska demand that violence against women and sexual violence be addressed harshly."

"The general consensus is Alaska's dismal record of sexual violence needs to be reversed," he said.