If I opened up my lunchbox and pulled out a Lebanese roll, I would get hassled. ', Then Labor premier Bob Carr has said of the original 55-year sentence: 'It was certainly a headline grabber, it met community expectations, it sent a powerful message to any punk with violent tendencies on the margins of gang activity that this was very dangerous behaviour.'. Worldwide pandemic lockdowns have only made it easier for Lebanese expats to coordinate. #23. Bilal Skaf, however, elected to give evidence. A 44-year-old woman killed two Lebanese residing in Melbourne, the capital of the state of Victoria in the southeast of Australia. Political news Crime families exchange gunfire and trade narcotics with apparent immunity; arrestees in Bankstown are 60 times more likely to use heroin than those in other parts in Australia. . Counsel for each of the other accused addressed the jury then. His demeanour in the court room said that. "Lebanese media often help enshrine the idea that men can get away with these crimes," said Hayat Mirshad, co-director at Fe-Male, a local feminist group. The Beqaa Valley, a fertile valley in east Lebanon and one of the country's most important farming regions, is also known for being one of the most important cannabis cultivating regions in the Middle East. Melbourne experiences a moderate crime rate and is generally considered a safe city for living and travelling. In my view, all of these men remain a continuing threat to the Sydney community and particularly to young women. The first occurred from 1880 to 1947 when many Maronite, Melkite and Orthodox Christians migrated. It seemed clear to me that these men were sending out a message to the community in Sydney. 5 Brian Lipscomb Koreans, growing numbers of Indians, and on the Lakemba side lots of Lebanese and other Arabs. A mobile phone was then used by someone in this group to secure the attendance of another group who arrived in a car. In the 1980s . But after seeing a close friend covered with petrol and set alight, he turned over a new leaf and began writing The Combination, a film about Lebanese schoolchildren who get caught up with gangs that won critical acclaim on release in 2010. Frequently, whilst sitting in the dock, he clicked his fingers towards his counsel, summoning him over. Indictable offenses are heard in a superior court in the presences of a jury. Australia's law defines rape as "unlawful sexual act with another person by force; without their consent." One of the victims, an 18-year-old woman, was raped 40 times by 14 men over four hours in an attack coordinated by mobile phone. The theft occurred in a tightly secured area, further reflecting the cash-strapped country's continued decay. Apart from the three men I have indicated who were on trial, there was also in the car they were travelling in, which was a white van, a young man with an intellectual disability, fourteen years of age, who later pleaded guilty to a series of sexual assaults. The Lebanese-born population of Australia stood at 70,325 persons in the 1996 census. The local people were all blown up and the tragic end was released | International | Sanli News Network SETN.COM, Eleven-year-old Georgia wins on The Voice Kids. 'One thing was obvious to me - Bilal Skaf wanted the victims to talk about what happened, to pass on their terror. But below the surface of this lower-middle class success story is a Middle Eastern ghetto terrorized by members of its community. Coronavirus Those involved in these crimes committed them between 10 August and 30 August 2000 on three separate occasions. Surprised by Lebanese officials audaciously asking for Australian money for personal reasons, Bartlem refused to process their requests further. Bilal Skaf was charged with every instance of forced sexual intercourse by anyone in the gang on the basis that he was an accessory before the fact to every crime and was just as responsible as the man who carried it out. I like Middle Eastern food. TV newspaper I think the sentences struck a chord with the public generally because the attacks were predatory and carefully planned. The first community of Lebanese in Australia were Maronite Christians, quickly followed by a large Muslim community. When he gave evidence, Bilal Skaf was cocky in his manner and almost contemptuous of the Crown prosecutor. 'I have thought of this over the years,' Finane writes. I consider my sentences imposed on the members of this gang were warranted. Religious law has the same standing as civil law, which incorporates family law, marriage, divorce and custody. All rights reserved. The men in the red van also sexually assaulted them in the same fashion, as well as punching them and kicking them. RELATED: Manhunt under way after shooting in Sydney suburb. We tried setting it up once but it didnt work, says Don Weatherburn, director of the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. Men of Middle Eastern appearance banteramicably in Arabic within tea rooms and coffee shops, while women wearing headscarves, hijabs and, on the odd occasion, burqas wheel prams through Centro, Bankstowns sparkling white shopping center. After finishing school, Basha became involved in more serious crimes. The crime was comparable to Lebanese gang rapes in Sydney. Her evidence was very powerful. Another four men were in a red van that followed the white van. Will this be the catalyst that prompts the move home? The two girls were unaware of the red van until sometime after the men in the white van conveyed them to a park at Greenacre some hours later. There was no application that I should do otherwise. The Ones That Didnt Make It: Australia-Bound Refugees Languish in Indonesia, Circle Sentencing: Alternative Justice in Australia, Wildfires Scorch Australia As Temperatures Reach Record Highs, Nelson Mandelas Extraordinary Life: An Interactive Timeline, How Did Gaddafi Die? To the streets, thats where., Australian-Lebanese filmmaker George Basha agrees. The second trial had two accused only, Bilal Skaf and Mohammed Skaf, his younger brother. By this time, she had been kidnapped and raped vaginally, orally and anally more than forty times by fourteen men. Major Joyce Harmer of the Salvation Army was in court as a support person for her and I am sure this helped her greatly when she was giving evidence. A GANG war over drug turf that has been simmering for two decades has erupted into a series of public shootings that has turned Fairfield in western Sydney into Australia's most dangerous suburb. I continue to hold that view. Horrific scenes of carnage on 4 August have given way to an enormous display of humanitys strength, strangers shoulder to shoulder beginning the daunting task of renewal. It was non-stop, he says. . Trad thinks the problem can be nipped in the bud by changing the way schools deal with Lebanese delinquents. [6] These criminal organizations are mostly based around extended criminal clans. id send all the ones in Australia back to lebanon and then drop a bomb. Rebecca Maakasa, confined in Melbournes lockdown, is connecting through social media to the Lebanese diaspora to offer whatever assistance she can, Its like an apocalyptic world, Sydney-born Yasmin Kassis describes. He later pleaded guilty to some of the offences and when he did, I directed that he not be identified by his name. My understanding was that the relevant agencies would report back to Australia, either through our UN office in Geneva or New York, how they spent that money, and the government would see that as being accountable to the Australian taxpayer, he says. They believed they would be driven around Chatswood, have a few puffs of marijuana and would then go home. I wouldnt even put the request through to Canberra that the Lebanese government wanted direct funding, because it would go nowhere., That level of overt corruption is only too familiar for ordinary Lebanese, who blame government negligence and mismanagement for the devastating blast. Skaf was a small man, rather thin, with black hair and a sharp face. EXTRACT: After the sentences were imposed, many people would say things like, 'I'm glad you got those Lebs,' but I found myself trying to explain that I did not 'get those Lebs' at all. Although Lebanese are to be found throughout Australia . Meanwhile Bilal Skaf and others with him got into the van in which they had come to the park and drove around to the telephone box where one of them produced a gun and ordered her to get inside. Average rent in Canberra. live broadcast If a person who is guilty, pleads guilty, anxiety and stress to the victims is removed and it is reasonable to give lesser sentences. I hope that those who have been released do rehabilitate or, at the very least, that they do not re-offend. A former minister once asked me, hasnt the Australian embassy got a little aid budget? I asked what for, he said he wanted to put new street lighting on his street. Bartlem says that request was one of many, which included a Lebanese politician seeking all-expense-paid trips to Australia. The Pursuit of Justice chronicles Finnane's legal career and lifelong campaigning for for social justice, particularly the treatment of those disadvantaged by the legal system. Its just a mess. Abouzeid was in Melbourne at the time of the blast, relying on relatives to send photos of the destruction. As a policy, multiculturalism was introduced by immigration minister Al . they deserve nothing less and we'd be making the world a better place. meadowbrook country club estates; michael mullen obituary; pamela gluckin obituary new york; antonio tonyboy floirendo jr biography In other words, each man forced his penis into her mouth and ejaculated. Russia Why did those who joined him, become involved? I merely imposed sentences on a number of offenders. Home News Video- A crime shocked the Lebanese in Australia.. New facts about the murder of Abboud Yazbek. When I commenced the summing up, I said this: This is the twenty-first century since the birth of Christ; we are not in the nineteenth, eighteenth or seventeenth centuries. The evidence of the two girls was probably sufficient in its own right to identify Bilal Skaf because he had many conversations with them on the night and he left a condom full of his semen in the park where he and others sexually assaulted these two girls. This was a criminal conspiracy involving two groups of men, that was carefully coordinated by mobile phones. News Agency There was another man, later identified as Y, who took part in the events on this night. Pluto Press, Annandale NSW. Counsel for each of the other accused, as well as the Crown, then attacked Bilal Skaf in cross-examination, suggesting he was a liar. Until this point, Hajeid and Ghanem had been on bail. Many months later he pleaded guilty to a series of sexual offences that included the events of this night. He made and received most of the Arabic language phone calls, which were used to tell the men in the red van who he had with him and where they were going. Criminal organizations are mostly based around extended crime families with a large number of associates from their community. The people in the white van went through the city and stopped at a McDonald's in Stanmore. Ive been a journalist for 20 years and Ive covered some really tough stories, Im no stranger to these sorts of violent upheavals, but this one feels different, Abouzeid says. New South Wales (NSW) state police have arrested 31 people, including three teenagers, after a turf war between two prominent drug gangs [File: David Gray/Reuters] By Ian Lloyd Neubauer. Indeed, when he was being taken away after I imposed sentence on him, he turned to me and said, 'And I am innocent, you c***t!' I gave that consent. More discrimination was reported by Middle-Eastern males compared with females on dealings with the police, disrespect, name-calling, and distrust. The Skaf gang used cunning methods to lure young women during a terrifying rampage in southwestern Sydney which changed the city forever. We are afraid there is some connection between these guys here and the guys in Lebanon, he said during a three-month visit to Sydney earlier this year to exchange information on criminal syndicates with the New South Wales Police Forces Middle Eastern Crime Squad. From 1880 to the 1920s, mainly Maronite, Melkite and Orthodox Christians arrived on a small scale. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. This reflected his complete contempt for the court process and his rejection of any notion of contrition or remorse. A 44-year-old woman killed two Lebanese residing in Melbourne, the capital of the state of Victoria in the southeast of Australia. This was evidence of incriminating phone calls between him and Chami. I do not believe he will ever acknowledge the seriousness of what he did. Thats whats so disturbing., Lebanese-born educator Keysar Trad believes criminality in the community is a by-product of overly strict parents who expect their children to excel at school, and racism in the classroom and playground that prevents them from doing so. Skaf used condoms and threw them on the ground. She was also raped vaginally by another man who also forced oral sex on her. When the verdicts came in after the conclusion of this trial, I informed counsel that I would not sentence their clients until all trials concerning them had concluded. ASIAN ORGANISED CRIME IN AUSTRALIA A Discussion Paper by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority February 1995 (return to table of contents) 5. Both Mohammed Skaf and the victim went and saw her mother and got her consent as the trip was going to be on a Saturday night. We started with 10-12 members, now we have 160 members and so many volunteering requests, Abbas says, adding that the membership has spread to diaspora communities in numerous countries, including Australia. With Covid-19 restrictions preventing Lebanese Australians from holding in-person activities, such as fundraising events and protests, local activists like Maakasa are relying on Instagram and Facebook to generate support. The children of refugees who fled Lebanon's civil war for peaceful Australia in the 1970s form a. majority of Australian militants fighting in the Middle East, according to about a dozen counter-terrorism officials, security experts and Muslim community members. Skaf did all the talking and suggested a trip in a car and puffing some marijuana. My apartment, like others close to the blast, is . Sexual intercourse without consent was the principal crime contemplated and committed. For thousands of Lebanese Australians residing in Lebanon, the opportunity to return to Australia at any point provides a psychological safety net. The girl was just sixteen years old. Crimes under Lebanese laws may not be considered offences in Australia. Corona The gang's ringleader, Skaf, denied his role in the crimes despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt and showed no remorse even after he was sentenced to 55 years in prison. Racially motivated crime and punishment The treatment of a jailed Lebanese-Australian rapist has highlighted a wider debate about ethnicity and crime in this most cosmopolitan of nations,. Sports Malayalam News 'During the sentencing process at the end of the Skaf trials, I expressed the view that what this gang did was worse than murder. It was nearly midnight. The three of them lived with their parents in houses in the suburbs surrounding Bankstown. At some time after this first trial began, I was informed that there were other trials involving the same men and other men in which kidnapping, forced sexual intercourse and other assaults were involved. Lebanese organized crime syndicates generally are active globally, largely due to the mass Arab population. My views on sentence were not those of the judges of the Court of Criminal Appeal, but their sentences prevail. The law provides that a discount of up to 25 per cent is appropriate to be given if the plea of guilty is given at an early time. Stars: Travis Fimmel, Jemmason Power, Talijah Blackman-Corowa, Eden Cassady Votes: 2,921 3. There were other standard instructions thenthe trial began. Australia Arab organized crime was introduced in Australia after the mass immigration of Arab people after the Lebanese Civil War in the 1970s to the end of the 1980s. This meant that the Crown could seek my consent to cross-examine him to show that he was a man of bad character. Single expats: 1.773 USD. God damn, you see one blonde person from Turkey or Lebanon and you think that there's pure whites in that country. COVID-19 Praying for the injured, missing & dead, she wrote on Twitter. It is a crime that assaults human dignity. J., Noble, G. Poynting, S. and Tabar, P. (2000) Kebabs, Kids, Cops and Crime. Few crimes in recent Australian history have stirred more community anger and fear than a series of pack rapes committed by more than a dozen young Lebanese men in Sydney's west 18 years ago. Unidentified thieves broke into the headquarters of Lebanon's state news agency and stole a server containing its photo archive, officials say. It is also possible that there were other victims who have never come forward. Those who pleaded guilty, were given lesser sentences than those who pleaded not guilty, because the law provided for this. I also prohibited the taking of any photographs of the accused, two of whom were on bail. Look what happened in Germany in the 1940s., Selda Dagistanli, a lecturer in criminology at the University of Western Sydney, agrees that, When you attach criminal behavior to ethnicity, thats racist, and it makes you question the motivation of the people saying it., New South WalesPolice Deputy Commissioner Nick Kaldas says the problem in Bankstown and other parts of southwestern Sydney is not as bad as it seems. In no sense were the members of this gang representing other Lebanese people. He agreed that his client showed no remorse and no contrition. For example, I had to explain that sexual intercourse was not, as many people might think, only penetration of the vagina of a woman by the penis of a man, but extended to penetration of any part of the body of a person by any part of the body of another. In the face of such catastrophic ruin, the only option local residents had was to help. Glass was blown out blown out with such a high velocity that there are shards of glass embedded in some of my furniture, almost dagger-like, she says. 3. Australia enjoys friendly bilateral relations with Lebanon, underpinned by strong people-to-people links. Each of Ghanem and Hajeid's counsel put forward arguments that they had not been properly identified and were not present. The improvement was remarkable Imagine what they would be capable of if they had a better start in life., PHOTOS:Wildfires Scorch Australia As Temperatures Reach Record Highs. I wont be packing up., For Melki, staying in Lebanon isnt simply about a place of residence, its about justice. The following is an edited extract of The Pursuit of Justice by Michael Finnane, QC: All three accused were Australian citizens whose parents had come from Lebanon. These two girls did not expect to be driven over the Harbour Bridge. from There was no evidence that any offences were committed because of religious or cultural or racial reasons and, in fact, there had been no mention of religion at any time in the trial. China The complainants clearly identified Skaf, whose counsel suggested to each complainant that she had consented to having sexual intercourse with him. The ultra-rich lost 10% of their wealth in 2022, study finds, Devin Booker delights against the Hornets, Russian internet celebrity posts 700-year-old holy tree naked! One of Australia's most redneck outback parliamentarians, Bob Katter, is the descendant of Lebanese immigrants. And you, have you seen the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter in the sky of Barn? "(Ghazal) said on the show that if he . It was important that I told the jury this because each of the girls had certainly agreed to get in the white van. In this next car, the victim was repeatedly indecently assaulted, threatened with death when something that looked like a gun was held to her head and raped vaginally three times and orally five times. Mohammed Skaf was charged, like his brother Bilal, with two counts of sexual intercourse without consent because he had arranged for the girl to be made available to his brother and others to have sexual intercourse with the victim. Bilal Skaf did most of the talking to the girls and called himself 'Adam'. National; Crime; How Skaf rape gang trapped their victims. The victim was then taken by car to a car park near the Bankstown Trotting Club where she was vaginally raped once and orally raped twice. An estimate of the total Lebanese population in Australia, consisting of Lebanese-born and their descendants, is approaching 250,000. Skaf and the members of this gang clearly wanted public recognition for what they had done. When later interviewed, Chami claimed that Bilal Skaf told him, 'There's a slut at the Bankstown Trotting Club.' Im still in a state of shock. 'Many of the victims, I am sure, will be affected by these crimes for the whole of their lives. Frank Hakim, who emigrated to Australia at the age of 20 or so, was the first prominent Lebanese criminal. For most of his career, Finnane was not well known outside legal circles but that changed rapidly and forever when he presided over the Skaf rape trials. This is probably Katter's most famous and funny video, wait until the end. Bilal Skaf and up to eleven other men who were never identified, then turned up in a van sometime later. It came as a surprise to me that nothing was going to be presented to me by counsel for Bilal Skaf. In 1996, 72 per cent of Lebanese in Australia lived in Sydney. Fortunately she wasnt home at the time. The young girl was subjected to extensive questioning by counsel for each of the accused and repeatedly it was suggested to her that she had consented to everything and/or was exaggerating or lying. National News Agency staff in Beirut found a broken . Growing up in western Sydney, I was bullied and picked on for everything I did and stood for. Finnane has compared the Skaf gang's depravity to outrages committed by invading armies in times of war. 'Sexual intercourse without consent must be the worst crime after murder, because it involves a person invading the body of another, usually violently. Neither Ghanem nor Hajeid gave evidence and their cases were run on the basis that the girls could not identify them but that, of course, became very difficult for them when Bilal Skaf gave evidence that placed them at the park. There were a series of instances of forced oral intercourse by each of the accused men and H, as well as Y and the men in the red van. Average rent in Sydney. There were 72 drive-by shootings in Sydney in the first half of this year one every 2 days most of which took place in Bankstown, the City of Liverpool further west and in Sydneys inner-west. Whatever they might have done in those centuries, the law is now perfectly clear - any woman is entitled to refuse consent to sexual intercourse at any time. A number of family members of the gang members, other than the Skafs, gave evidence and it seemed to me that they were decent, honourable people, who were troubled about the criminal involvement of these young men. I directed that he be known only as 'H', but his identity was not revealed in this first trial. He extended his criminal activities and eventually became known as "the Lebanese . None of these young women will ever forget their experience at the hands of this gang.'. But when I was older and more Lebanese kids moved to my area, we formed a gang so we could protect each other and I started bullying back. Migrants are, on the whole, far less likely to commit serious crimes than the Australian born population; A small number of migrant groups defy this trend and have higher rates of crime; When asking why some groups have higher rates of crime we cannot simply equate criminality with the culture. He had convictions for offences of dishonesty and it was thus easy for the Crown to establish that he was a man of bad character. He told them they could expect there to be media publicity and that they should ignore anything they read outside court. But to this day Finnane is regularly asked about the Skaf case, sometimes by strangers, at social functions and on other unexpected occasions. I then summed up the entire case, dealing with all the evidence, all the arguments and the law that applied. The assailants broke the door and its lock into the archive room. The available evidence suggests that Australians of Lebanese ethnicity who were born in Lebanon reportedly have higher rates of cardiovascular disease-related and type 2 diabetes-related complications when compared with the wider Australian population. Another car then pulled up which had in it, amongst others, Mohammed Skaf. Then it was reported from the police, that its investigators were trying to find a driver, who they believe transported the appellant from Brunswick, where the crime was committed, to the Carlton North area, where she was arrested, and said that he was wearing a dark-colored jacket with boxes in the back seat of his car, in addition to a breathing tube. He will remain a threat to the community. These are questions that will probably never be answered. Single expats: 1.630 USD. Drive-bys were virtually unheard of in Sydney until the mid-1990s, when the sons and grandsons of hardworking Lebanese migrants emerged as serious players in a world of organized crime, hitherto dominated by Vietnamese and Calabrian gangs. Criminal organizations however often transcend religious and cultural barriers, with members of the Sunni communities all involved in the same criminal organizations.[3]. (2001) The Lebanese . business The trial was quite tense. Those accompanying Bilal Skaf on 12 August, perhaps ten, perhaps eleven men, have not been brought to trial and many of those involved in the horrific spate of sexual assaults on 30 August 2000 have not been brought to trial. The plan was to kidnap, degrade, sexually assault and humiliate. According to the NSW Police, Lebanese crime families have started to corner the market on drug-dealing, causing them to clash with other gangs in the city. Each girl denied this and gave evidence that Skaf, and those with him in the white van, persistently put pressure on them to engage in oral sex in the van on the way to Greenacre. Deputy Commissioner for Investigations and Counter Terrorism Dave Hudson.Daniel Munoz Criminals are coming together from a really diverse range of backgrounds to do bad things together. Nevertheless he acknowledges Middle Eastern organized crime in the city is not going to go away and more research is needed. Ukraine The population is diverse, having a large Christian religious base, being mostly Maronite Catholics, while also having a large Muslim group of Sunni branch of Islam.. Lebanon, in both its modern-day form as the Lebanese state . The main difference is that Greeks & Italians want to live in Australia under Australian laws and love our way of life, they mix with Australian's, they want their kids to and they great people. 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