Abubaker Deghayes, 49, is accused of assaulting a woman in a Brighton flat over his belief she had a 'demon' in her

A mosque leader whose two ISIS-fighting sons were killed in Syria is in court for allegedly assaulting a woman while trying to rid her of a ‘demon’.

Abubaker Deghayes, 50, who is in charge of al-Quds mosque in Brighton is accused of attacking the woman by bending her arm until her shoulder dislocated.

He is also accused of intimidating her when she went to police over the alleged attack.

The court heard a woman, who cannot be named, pleaded for Deghayes to stop the assault at a flat in Brighton in May 2017.

In a statement she said: ‘He made me fall onto the floor from the sofa using his hands.

‘He made sure my face stayed on the floor and that I didn’t resist him and so that I didn’t get away.

‘He was not normal. He said he was ‘making the demon come out’. He said he wanted the demon to come out because that was what was upsetting me.

‘He had his legs on my back and with his hand he pulled strongly on my shoulder. I was just staying ‘stop, stop, there’s no demon’.

The woman said she called an ambulance after Deghayes left the address.

However, she told doctors in the hospital she was injured in an accidental fall.

Last October Deghayes reportedly returned to the woman’s flat but she refused to allow him in.

Jurors at Blackfriars Crown Court were played a recording of the 999 call she made, in which she shouts out of a window at Deghayes in Arabic and speaks to the operator in English.

Officers arrested Deghayes at the property, following the woman’s claim he had assaulted her five months earlier.

Deghayes denied assault as he appeared at Brighton Magistrates’ Court on 16 November, charged with an offence of occasioning actual bodily harm.

Two sons of Abubaker Deghayes have died fighting with ISIS in Syria and a third is believed to have travelled to Libya

A condition of his bail was not to contact directly or indirectly any witnesses in the case.

However, in November he is accused of tracking her to her brother’s home.

He reportedly told the woman’s brother, who also cannot be named for legal reasons, that he would ‘kill your sister’.

The woman said: ‘I didn’t hear what they said to each other. Even my brother said that Abubaker said he would kill me. My brother said that’s why he went to the police.

‘There’s no reason for him to want to kill me to be honest.

‘When someone says openly that they want to kill someone it shows they need a doctor and shows that he is ill.’

Deghayes was further charged with intimidating a witness and breaching his bail conditions in December.

The father-of-three, who also works in property letting and management, denies being near his accuser on both occasions.

Deghayes said: 'I did not see her. I'm not responsible for her injury.

'I can't recall exactly where I was, it's too far back but my day is spent usually in going to the mosque, calling in the tenants, socialising, visiting the hospital chaplains or mosque to see if there's any people to help.'

Deghayes said he was travelling to Luton to meet friends at an Islamic centre on the night he is accused of being at the victim's brother's house.

The mosque leader's eldest son, Amer, 19 left his home in Brighton for Syria in 2013. He joined a radical Islamist militia fighting Bashar al-Assad’s army and was joined by his friend Ibrahim.

Despite interventions by police, social workers and other agencies his two younger brothers travelled to Syria in 2014.

Abubaker Deghayes is on trial at Blackfriars Crown Court where he stands accused of attacking a woman and dislocating her shoulder

Abdullah, 18, and Jaffar, 17, wanted to fight for the Islamic State terror group but were killed just a few months after their arrival in the war-torn region.

Abdullah was shot by a sniper while chasing retreating forces in Lakatia in April 2014, and Jaffar was killed six months later during a close-range firefight amid the ruins of Idlib.

Amer is still alive and thought to be in Libya.

Abubaker’s brother Omar, uncle to the jihadi brothers, is said to have been detained in Guantanamo Bay in 2002 and released five years later.

Deghayes denies one count of assault causing actual bodily harm and one count of intimidating a witness.

The trial continues.