It is a crime that assaults human dignity. Bilal Skaf, however, elected to give evidence. He extended his criminal activities and eventually became known as "the Lebanese . I also told the jury that 'this is not a court of morals' and explained that they might not approve of the conduct of some of the participants because they thought they were acting immorally, but that was not the question at all. The jury considered this very carefully and were out considering their verdicts for a number of days but, when they came back, they convicted the three accused on all charges. Bourse Impact Lebanon has raised over 5m (A$9m) since it launched its disaster-relief fundraiser immediately after the blast. The Lebanese community leader says Sydney's legendary Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad (or MEOCS) should "never have been established in the first place - or at least not been given such a terrible title". Since then, migration has significantly reduced and growth rates have become steady. They were classified as a Turk due to Lebanon being a province of the Ottoman Empire at that time. Lebanese organized crime syndicates generally are active . The gang also crash-tackled, punched and kicked these girls and stole items of jewellery that they had on them. World But below the surface of this lower-middle class success story is a Middle Eastern ghetto terrorized by members of its community. None of these young women will ever forget their experience at the hands of this gang.'. This was also the position for the assaults and the robberies committed on the two victims. His co-accused on the other hand, were quiet and restrained in their manner. The trial for these ofences was particularly horrifying. If the Crown proved to the satisfaction of the jury and beyond reasonable doubt that it was done without consent, then the Crown case on that charge was established. By Facing racism at school and pressure at home, children from Middle Eastern families in Australia are dragged into world of organized crime and ethnic bloodletting, Lebanese youths are searched by Australian police in Sydney. 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. BEIRUT (AP) Unknown assailants broke into the offices of Lebanon's state-run National News Agency and stole the servers that contain its archives, the Information Ministry said Monday. Australian Lebanese families. In analogy with Australia, Arab organized crime also came to Germany following the Lebanese Civil War. The blast flattened the neighbourhoods closest to the port, such as Gemmayze and Mar Mikhael tourist hotspots and the heart of Beiruts famous nightlife, now as haunting as Stalingrad. Trad thinks the problem can be nipped in the bud by changing the way schools deal with Lebanese delinquents. 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. 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. Source: AAP. The identity of the four men in the red van has never properly been revealed. Then another car arrived with the offenders Chami and two other men, one man known as Nike Sam. As for their killing, the police learned about it from citizens who told them that they had found Aboud quarreling in a side road in one of the citys suburbs. 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. He was the gang boss and the organiser of everything that happened. Often different rival criminal families are interlocked in feuds, resulting in a fair amount of violence. 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. 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. Her evidence was very powerful. Little is known regarding the health and lifestyle behaviours of Australians of Lebanese ethnicity. The crime was comparable to Lebanese gang rapes in Sydney. And these guys are well armed. 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. Luckily, a man came around the corner, saw her plight and approached her. The people in the white van went through the city and stopped at a McDonald's in Stanmore. A large number of former Lebanese citizens immigrated to several major German cities under political asylum and refugee status. They also robbed the girls. You just want more, Basha says. News Agency Of these, 52.5 per cent were males and 47.5 per cent were females. Political overview. 'I reject this complaint as well,' he writes. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. There is no concept in our law that there is a category of person called loose women who are deemed somehow to consent and certainly there is no law that merely because a young woman might give an indication that she was friendly with someone and didn't protest too much when they were laying hands on her that she therefore was consenting to anything. 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. The complainant, who had been sexually assaulted by fourteen men something like forty times over four hours, could not identify him. The evidence showed Mohammed Skaf to be a treacherous bully who betrayed the trust of the victim and made her, a sixteen-year old school girl, available to his brother and ten or eleven other men. business 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. So that putting a penis in the mouth of a woman, in law, was sexual intercourse. The girls had no idea where they were and were obviously terrified. Praying for the injured, missing & dead, she wrote on Twitter. Single expats: 1.773 USD. None of the accused or the victims had been drinking alcohol and none had been taking drugs, even though having marijuana was an inducement offered to the two girls. 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. What is still difficult for me to understand is why this serious criminal conspiracy involving so many young men was launched. Expat families: 3.413 USD. In the early 1980s, as a young detective I was attached to the Drug Squad at . While Lebanese settled all over Australia, the majority have consistently settled in NSW and particularly in Sydney. To my mind, the community deserved to be protected from Bilal Skaf for many years. The crime was comparable to Lebanese gang rapes in Sydney. That is my hope. And those six included domestic violence, random breath testing, theft, robbery, assaults and motor vehicle theft - no drugs, organised crime, firearms, shootings, attempted murders or homicides. Women's rights activists had long demanded that Article . Finnane has compared the Skaf gang's depravity to outrages committed by invading armies in times of war. Instead of taking her to the Harbour Bridge, Mohammed Skaf drove her to a park in Greenacre. While working as CEO of the Australian International Islamic College in Brisbane last year, he initiated a new program that saw problem students placed in a behavior-management room where they were closely supervised by an Islamic cleric. A mobile phone was then used by someone in this group to secure the attendance of another group who arrived in a car. "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. Present governor of the State of NSW is a distinguished Lebanese-Christian woman. Why was the third victim plucked from a train? Unlike many of the rape cases of which I am aware, there was no previous contact between any of the perpetrators and the victims, except for the second one in which Mohammed Skaf selected a sixteen-year-old from his school to be a victim. His counsel acknowledged the force of what I had said but again said that he would be presenting no evidence. Bilal Skaf again had vaginal sex with her. One of Australia's most redneck outback parliamentarians, Bob Katter, is the descendant of Lebanese immigrants. Bilal Skaf was the eldest and was about 21 years of age. The damage is extensive, like all the other apartments in the area. Without Bilal Skaf leading them, perhaps they will come to see that there is a way forward. 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. 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. The main center of Arab organized crime is Sydney, with a significant community of 120,000, followed by Melbourne. All rights reserved. health The 1995 NSW Legislative Council standing committee on social issues reported that while Lebanese-Australian youth comprise 0.9% of . I think the sentences struck a chord with the public generally because the attacks were predatory and carefully planned. Lebanese organized crime syndicates generally are active globally, largely due to the mass Arab population. None generated anything like the public attention these trials drew. Bikie gangs such as the Nomads recruit heavily from among Lebanese Muslims, as have jihadist recruiters. 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. Each girl was questioned by the Crown prosecutor first and then cross-examined by each of the counsel for the accused. The four men in this other car all raped this unfortunate young girl, who was then hosed down until she was soaking wet and forced out of the car that she was in near the Catholic Club at Lidcombe. Sports One of them was a fourteen-year-old boy with an intellectual disability who was known, following directions by me, as H, and two brothers, Mahmoud Sanoussi and Mohammed Sanoussi. I cannot recall any other evidence being presented by him or on his behalf. Mr Inbetween (2018-2021) TV-MA | 30 min | Crime, Drama 8.6 Rate this I was the judge who dealt with these trials. 'One thing was obvious to me - Bilal Skaf wanted the victims to talk about what happened, to pass on their terror. . 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. [1] Due to the vast international Arab diaspora and along with a certain amount of organized criminals active in their respective communities, the Beqaa Valley has become one of the most infamous marijuana and hashish exporting regions in the world. However, the website of the Voice of Lebanon radio station in Melbourne, mentioned important information, accompanied by two pictures of the dead, and a summary of the information that the offender was a friend of the assassinated Tony Yazbek and she has a 10-year-old daughter, who lives with her mothers grandmother, and that the late Sarkis Abboud was a victim of his presence with his friend. At that time, according to the radio. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. . This was a criminal conspiracy involving two groups of men, that was carefully coordinated by mobile phones. 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. The protests inspired Lebanese abroad to get involved, prompting would-be activists to connect virtually and volunteer. This offence carries a maximum penalty of 25 years' imprisonment. Bilal Skaf was one of the people who then approached the victim whom he grabbed by the hair. After they were raped, the victims were just abandoned. A criminal trial commences with the Crown prosecutor calling evidence, after making a short opening address, then each of the accused in turn calls evidence in his case if he wishes to do so. Another curious feature in the trial was Skaf's bold assertion that he was a man of good character. Australia's law defines rape as "unlawful sexual act with another person by force; without their consent." The rapists' record tape a great amount of their rape and this was used in court as evidence. 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. 'I do not think it is correct. 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. There were others who have never been brought to trial. When I came to reflect on the facts of this trial, I again found myself wondering what it was that caused Bilal Skaf and the others with him to behave in such a depraved and violent fashion against a completely helpless girl. meadowbrook country club estates; michael mullen obituary; pamela gluckin obituary new york; antonio tonyboy floirendo jr biography Africa It came as a surprise to me that nothing was going to be presented to me by counsel for Bilal Skaf. Unidentified thieves broke into the headquarters of Lebanon's state news agency and stole a server containing its photo archive, officials say. The assailants broke the door and its lock into the archive room. The criminal justice system judged and punished the perpetrators. Finnnane sentenced Bilal Skaf to a maximum sentence of 55 years in prison with a minimum term of 40 years. I was lucky; I got a second chance. I was always hopeful that the people I sentenced in other cases might see the point of rehabilitation and, undoubtedly, some of them did. It was non-stop, he says. The 1997-98 statistics produce high alleged offender rates . 'There were other sexual assault cases I heard, some of children, some of adult women,' Finnane writes. Lebanese organized crime is active in the country of Lebanon itself, as well as in countries and areas with a large Arab community, most notably United Kingdom, Australia, Germany and in the Triple Frontier in South America. That much was confirmed by Lieutenant Colonel Rony Ghanem of Lebanons Internal Security Force. Mobile phone technology was used on each occasion to coordinate the attacks, which were well planned and carried out with determination by young men, one as young as fourteen, the oldest being Bilal Skaf at twenty-one years of age. All three men put pressure on her to agree to have sex with them but she refused. [4] Some of the more notorious Arab mafia families include the infamous el-koura Younes Clan, the Shams Clan the Al Zein Clan[5] and the Miri Clan from Bremen. Stephen Gibbs for Daily Mail Australia. . News 33. 4. In certain parts of the region, life is structured around extended clan families, a number of whom are active in criminal activities such as narcotics trafficking, kidnapping for ransom and car theft. But to this day Finnane is regularly asked about the Skaf case, sometimes by strangers, at social functions and on other unexpected occasions. Following this, the Crown prosecutor made a closing address dealing with all aspects of the case and putting forward arguments as to why there should be convictions in each case. Skaf is now in Goulburn's Supermax prison serving a 31-year sentence with a minimum of 28 years. Australian society and government were mostly doing this until Bowen's speech. Another four men were in a red van that followed the white van. Under a large number of refugees, there were also several extended clans that already in Lebanon were deeply entrenched in organized crime. Deputy Commissioner for Investigations and Counter Terrorism Dave Hudson.Daniel Munoz Result: gun crime in western Sydney and northern Melbourne often involves Lebanese Australians, as we saw with the murder last month of Hamad Assaad, himself a suspected hitman. 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. The first found that Middle-Eastern Australians reported more discrimination compared with non-Middle-Eastern Australians. I pointed out at the time that he was likely to get the biggest sentence ever imposed for these sort of offences and surely he would want to present something to ameliorate his part in these crimes. The Lebanese-born population of Australia stood at 70,325 persons in the 1996 census. 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. The men in the van departed quickly and the man took her to his flat, calmed her down and helped her call a friend who eventually came and took her home. The main activities of Arab gangs in Australia are narcotics and weapons trafficking, extortion, prostitution, car theft and money laundering. Australia's law defines rape as "unlawful sexual act with another person by force; without their consent." The evidence of the two girls was given in closed court hearings but I permitted the press to have access to the transcripts of the evidence on the basis that the names of the two girls were not revealed and no photographs were taken of them. When I came to sentence Bilal Skaf, I sought submissions from his counsel who told me that he had a psychologist's report but was instructed by his client not to present it. This surprising evidence was used by the Crown to bolster its case about identification. Lebanese Migration to Australia There have been three main waves of immigration from Lebanon to Australia. Why did the gang first of all go to a shopping centre at Chatswood? Rania Abouzeids apartment in Beirut, close to the blast site. He later pleaded guilty to some of the offences and when he did, I directed that he not be identified by his name. She does not have to fight to the death to protect herself from sexual assault. 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. 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. The fact is that right up to the present, none of the perpetrators have ever said why they became involved in these crimes. Social media has been very important pages connected to diaspora networks create a ripple effect, which helps spread the word and mobilise the Lebanese diaspora across cities and continents.. The other two were also fairly small, but with the sorts of faces that could easily be forgotten. My views on sentence were not those of the judges of the Court of Criminal Appeal, but their sentences prevail. 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. 11:06 EST 27 May 2018 Finnane told these citizens that evidence might come out showing that those on trial were Lebanese by origin but that was irrelevant to the question of whether they had committed any offence. Factors such as unemployment, education, socio-economic disadvantage and lack of access to services have more bearing than ethnicity on crime rates. 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