Skaf was a small man, rather thin, with black hair and a sharp face. Skaf did all the talking and suggested a trip in a car and puffing some marijuana. id send all the ones in Australia back to lebanon and then drop a bomb. According to exclusive statistics from the armed crime squad, there has been a five-fold increase in non-fatal shootings in the north-west in four years and the region now sees almost two thirds of Victoria's non-fatal shootings. It seemed clear to me that these men were sending out a message to the community in Sydney. I wont be packing up., For Melki, staying in Lebanon isnt simply about a place of residence, its about justice. Expat families: 2.640 USD. As a policy, multiculturalism was introduced by immigration minister Al . My sentence on him was substantially reduced by the Court of Criminal Appeal, which also reduced the sentences on some of the others involved, but not all of them. That is my hope. Bilal Skaf again had vaginal sex with her. A Year Later, Unanswered Questions and Bad Blood, The Nanjing Massacre: Scenes from a Hideous Slaughter 75 Years Ago, Blood Money: Tsunami Recovery Funds Go to Japans Whaling Industry. ', 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.'. Bilal Skaf, however, elected to give evidence. News Agency 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. United States He remained the dominant figure and was the person who directed everything that later happened on that night in the park at Greenacre. 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. 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. 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. 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. The crime was comparable to Lebanese gang rapes in Sydney. 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. 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,. Crime 0 120 46.11 Crime rates in Australia Safety in Australia Contributors: 7102 Last update: February 2023 These data are based on perceptions of visitors of this website in the past 3 years. The Australian Embassy in Beirut, opened in 1967, was the third Australian Embassy to be established in the Middle East. The devastation has profoundly touched Australias 250,000-strong Lebanese community, with the immediate sense of despair now transitioning to a desperate urge to assist. The earth-shattering explosion, caused by the unsafe storage of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate at Beiruts port, damaged every part of the city of 2 million people. Confined at home due to Victorias lockdown, Maakasa has taken to social media to connect with others in the Lebanese diaspora across the world and offer assistance however she can. This reflected his complete contempt for the court process and his rejection of any notion of contrition or remorse. 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!' Single expats: 1.773 USD. I like Middle Eastern people. 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. The most common crimes involve physical altercations, trespassing, burglary, and damaging public or private property. I came to my apartment to see the damage. Often different rival criminal families are interlocked in feuds, resulting in a fair amount of violence. They could not suggest the girls consented to sexual intercourse because they claimed not to have been there. (2001) The Lebanese . Surprised by Lebanese officials audaciously asking for Australian money for personal reasons, Bartlem refused to process their requests further. Australia's law defines rape as "unlawful sexual act with another person by force; without their consent." I gave that consent. The protests inspired Lebanese abroad to get involved, prompting would-be activists to connect virtually and volunteer. To give you an idea of what to expect, here are some rent averages for the most popular cities in Australia. A range of factors impinge upon criminal behaviour . 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. Average rent in Canberra. 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 largest proportion of the Lebanese community in Australia, whether it includes those who were born overseas or also those who claim Lebanese ancestry, now lives . One upstanding group of Lebanese males got sentences up to 49 years prison for kidnapping girls on the street and raping them. There was no obvious reason. I had good reasons for doing this. 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. The victim was taken from the station area and forced into public toilets where four men in this group sexually assaulted her, with one of them assaulting her twice. It was obviously carefully planned and skilfully executed. Australia In Sydney, Disaffected Lebanese Kids Caught in Spiraling Gang Violence Facing racism at school and pressure at home, children from Middle Eastern families in Australia are dragged. 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. Praying for the injured, missing & dead, she wrote on Twitter. He put to me in submissions that the offences had taken place over a twenty-day period and I should impose a sentence that ensured his client spent no more than twenty years in jail. "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. Lebanese organized crime syndicates generally are active . His counsel acknowledged the force of what I had said but again said that he would be presenting no evidence. newspaper Conviction of Skaf was inevitable. Rania Abouzeids apartment in Beirut, close to the blast site. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. With Lebanons economy in tatters, led by a government widely accused of corruption, international donors and diaspora networks are the only hope for desperate Beirutis facing a food shortage and lack of shelter. The last person to plead guilty was a friend of Mohammed Skaf. The way we have been connecting is through Slack, getting visuals out on social media to attract peoples attention, and direct people in a very structured way as to how they can help, she explains. entertainment 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. 'What the Skaf gang did was to enable multiple men to defile and degrade four young women. I was lucky; I got a second chance. J., Noble, G. Poynting, S. and Tabar, P. (2000) Kebabs, Kids, Cops and Crime. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. I also told them to put out of their minds any religious or racial views they had. They found him dead in his apartment in a building in the same area, while Abboud died in an ambulance while she was transporting him to Nearby hospital. All three men put pressure on her to agree to have sex with them but she refused. Bilal Skaf sat throughout the sentencing process looking as if he could not care less about any of it. . God damn, you see one blonde person from Turkey or Lebanon and you think that there's pure whites in that country. The victim managed to break free and run across the park to a telephone box. Football world News, Hosted byByohostingMost Recommended Web Hosting for complains, abuse, advertising contact:o f f i c e @byohosting.com, Video- A crime shocked the Lebanese in Australia.. New facts about the murder of Abboud Yazbek, Two-season contract: Xavier Simoneau could become the Canadians next little plague, Irma Serrano, La Tigresa, dies at the age of 89, reports the Association of Interpreters of Mexico. "The passion is there. Murder was not in his mind; terrifying people generally was.'. The commission of a crime that shocked the Lebanese, who numbered 70 to 90,000 between expatriates and descendants in the city. #23. 4. This trial concluded on 11 July 2002 and concerned events of 12 August 2000, only two nights after the attacks on the two girls from Chatswood. Luckily, a man came around the corner, saw her plight and approached her. health Vietnamese Organised Crime in Australia . Michael Finnane, the judge who imposed that record sentence - which was later reduced after several appeals - was widely celebrated for his stance at the time. Yet, the new gangland war fails to capture the imagination. That sentence was modified several times upon appeal. The gang assaulted the two girls, by punching and kicking them and, of course, by dragging them across a park by the neck. Knowing this much corruption gives me more reason not to leave Lebanon. 5 Brian Lipscomb Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has said the government of Malcolm Fraser made a mistake in bringing Lebanese refugees to Australia in the 1970s, saying they formed a majority of . The latest death toll stands at over 150 but is expected to climb. The complainant, who had been sexually assaulted by fourteen men something like forty times over four hours, could not identify him. Factors such as unemployment, education, socio-economic disadvantage and lack of access to services have more bearing than ethnicity on crime rates. 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. One of the dead was Sarkis Abboud, 61 years old, and the second was his friend, Tony Yazbek, two years younger. The gang also crash-tackled, punched and kicked these girls and stole items of jewellery that they had on them. economy They believed they would be driven around Chatswood, have a few puffs of marijuana and would then go home. Those involved in these crimes committed them between 10 August and 30 August 2000 on three separate occasions. They had hardly ever been over the Harbour Bridge and were quite concerned when that happened. Trad thinks the problem can be nipped in the bud by changing the way schools deal with Lebanese delinquents. 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. The devastation has profoundly touched Australia's 250,000-strong Lebanese community, with the immediate sense of despair now transitioning to a desperate urge to assist. France . In this case, only Bilal Skaf gave evidence. Expat families: 3.413 USD. Lebanon has a population of approximately 4.6 million, with 18 recognised distinct religious . Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Both of the Skafs were convicted. 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. Lebanese-Christians have been immigrating to Australia for a very long time now and they have assimilated extremely well into Australian society. 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. 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. SYDNEY (Reuters) - 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. Hamzy, 44, was gunned down in the . 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. Ghanem's convictions for his participation in the attacks that were the subject of the first trial, however, were confirmed. 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. Or remorse of their minds any religious or racial views they had society! And volunteer, Cops and crime stands at over 150 but is expected to climb new! 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