AN ALBANIAN who brutally raped and robbed women in Thai massage parlours will be sentenced later this month.

Ardi Hila, 21, was found guilty of two counts of rape and five robberies at St Albans Crown Court after a three-week trial last week.

Hila, of Beechen Cliff Way, Isleworth, admitted visiting a massage parlour above KFC in St Albans Road in Watford on September 15 last year after his fingerprints were found at the flat.

However, he claimed not to be part of the gang that burst in and held knives to the throat of Piyaporn Busolini - who ran the business - and Tippwon Buckley, demanding money and beating the women.

Hila concocted a story that he had mistakenly been picked out by the women because he had visited the parlour earlier in the day, although he had left saying the women on offer were too old.

A mobile phone found at his home, belonging to one of the robbed women, came from a man who bought and sold electrical items, he claimed.

A week later a Thai massage parlour in Wood Lane End, Hemel Hempstead, was raided by a group of Albanian men.

The three women inside were raped and robbed by Hila and his accomplices.

Confronted with DNA evidence from a condom used by Hila on one of the victims he admitted to having consensual sex with a woman there.

The jury did not believe Hila's story and found him guilty of two counts of robbery for the Watford offence and three counts of robbery and two counts of rape for the Hemel Hempstead raid.

Fellow Albanian Vilger Zekav, 20, of Sturla Road, Chatham, was found guilty of three counts of robbery for the Hemel Hempstead offences.

Both men will be sentenced on Wednesday, November 22.