Malayalam News When they obliged, he crushed the foam cups and spread the debris onto the court floor. (2001) The Lebanese . She was also raped vaginally by another man who also forced oral sex on her. 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. 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. It is often difficult to predict whether there will be rehabilitation. What made this trial startlingly different from most rape trials of which I was aware were four matters: 1. 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. A 44-year-old woman killed two Lebanese residing in Melbourne, the capital of the state of Victoria in the southeast of Australia. The Skaf gang used cunning methods to lure young women during a terrifying rampage in southwestern Sydney which changed the city forever. That sentence was modified several times upon appeal. Without Bilal Skaf leading them, perhaps they will come to see that there is a way forward. This then meant there was not sufficient evidence against him of identification. Bilal Skaf again had vaginal sex with her. What we found was that in a matter of weeks they were excelling the other kids in school. The people in the white van went through the city and stopped at a McDonald's in Stanmore. 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. The Australian Embassy in Beirut, opened in 1967, was the third Australian Embassy to be established in the Middle East. The trial was quite tense. 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. They are also willing to purchase from Chinese importers and to wholesale to other groups, such as Romanian and Lebanese dealers. That concern was also reflected in the Australian governments own pledge of $2m this week, with foreign minister Marise Payne announcing the money would be evenly split between the UN World Food Programme and the Lebanese Red Cross. In Germany these clans mostly settled in Berlin, Bremen and Essen where they became involved in narcotics trafficking, weapons trafficking, extortion, prostitution, illegal gambling, car theft, money laundering and armed robbery. Terror in Sydney: The Unspeakable Crimes of Bilal Skaf's Lebanese Rape Gang (Crime Documentary) 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. 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. In 1996, 72 per cent of Lebanese in Australia lived in Sydney. Counsel for each of the other accused addressed the jury then. COVID-19 Of these, 52.5 per cent were males and 47.5 per cent were females. Factors such as unemployment, education, socio-economic disadvantage and lack of access to services have more bearing than ethnicity on crime rates. 'Skaf and the members of this gang clearly wanted public recognition for what they had done.'. If these men, who are all still young, take notice of their brothers, sisters and cousins, they will settle down to a normal life and the criminal justice system will not see them again. "The passion is there. health . Arab world [2], 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. 'During the sentencing process at the end of the Skaf trials, I expressed the view that what this gang did was worse than murder. Then another car arrived with the offenders Chami and two other men, one man known as Nike Sam. He extended his criminal activities and eventually became known as "the Lebanese . I then had to give them quite complex directions about the facts in the trial and the law, which has its complexities. While Lebanese settled all over Australia, the majority have consistently settled in NSW and particularly in Sydney. There were other standard instructions thenthe trial began. 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. 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!' 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. Id punch any Aussie kid who even looked at me., (MORE:Circle Sentencing: Alternative Justice in Australia). 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. China newspaper 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? Compared to the Arab population in Australia, a much larger number of Arabs are in Germany and have traditionally settled in large numbers in Lebanese regions such as Tripoli, the Beqaa Valley and Beirut where they have integral part of the country's Sunni community. Rania Abouzeids apartment in Beirut, close to the blast site. 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. These two girls did not expect to be driven over the Harbour Bridge. In the face of such catastrophic ruin, the only option local residents had was to help. Those who pleaded guilty, were given lesser sentences than those who pleaded not guilty, because the law provided for this. Some people believe that Melbourne gangs are behind the new wave of crimes, but the numbers tell us that most unique offenders are Australia-born youths between the ages of 15 to 25. 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. Koreans, growing numbers of Indians, and on the Lakemba side lots of Lebanese and other Arabs. 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. trot And given the history of government efforts to obtain information on race, Im not even sure its something we should be doing. A lot of the racism against Lebanese people in Australia however dates to before 9/11. What is still difficult for me to understand is why this serious criminal conspiracy involving so many young men was launched. More discrimination was reported by Middle-Eastern males compared with females on dealings with the police, disrespect, name-calling, and distrust. Lebanese mafia is a Colloquial term for organized crime groups which origin from Lebanon and Levant. Bourse The press was also prevented from providing any likenesses or descriptions of the accused or their racial origins. I think the sentences struck a chord with the public generally because the attacks were predatory and carefully planned. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. You cant fathom the despair and destruction., Kassis, an English teacher, is one of thousands of Beiruti residents who have been on the streets, cleaning the shopfronts and homes devastated by Tuesdays blast. 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. And that it happened because of incompetence and corruption.. Stephen Gibbs for Daily Mail Australia. 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. The criminal justice system judged and punished the perpetrators. Who could believe anyone would consent to being assaulted, robbed, abused and threatened? I then summed up the entire case, dealing with all the evidence, all the arguments and the law that applied. Impact Lebanon has raised over 5m (A$9m) since it launched its disaster-relief fundraiser immediately after the blast. Mr Inbetween (2018-2021) TV-MA | 30 min | Crime, Drama 8.6 Rate this 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. I do not believe he will ever acknowledge the seriousness of what he did. Those involved in these crimes committed them between 10 August and 30 August 2000 on three separate occasions. At no point, however, did he identify the men in the red van. Luckily, a man came around the corner, saw her plight and approached her. Melbourne experiences a moderate crime rate and is generally considered a safe city for living and travelling. Prospective jurors were told the trial might last a month and would involve allegations that the three accused men, with several others, sexually assaulted two young women against their will. The Lebanese-born population of Australia stood at 70,325 persons in the 1996 census. Skaf used condoms and threw them on the ground. ', 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.'. It seems that the police learned from him that the woman had stabbed his friend as well. The devastation in Beirut has profoundly touched Australias 250,000-strong Lebanese community. 34. [6] These criminal organizations are mostly based around extended criminal clans. Still, the enormity of the tragedy requires a monumental effort to rebuild the shattered city. If I opened up my lunchbox and pulled out a Lebanese roll, I would get hassled. 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.. This surprising evidence was used by the Crown to bolster its case about identification. 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 main center of Arab organized crime is Sydney, with a significant community of 120,000, followed by Melbourne. Arab Book 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. There were others who have never been brought to trial. At the end of the Crown case, the case against Skaf looked strong, but the case against Ghanem and Hajeid looked weak because of the identification problems. 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. The 37-year-old Carlingford man and 40-year-old Dundas Valley man have been charged with Dealing in the proceeds of crime - money or property worth $1,000,000 or more, contrary to section 400.3 (1) of the Criminal Code (Cth). The gang assaulted the two girls, by punching and kicking them and, of course, by dragging them across a park by the neck. There was no application that I should do otherwise. Finally, the rural areas of Sydney are home to small-time gangs who act as enforcers for the bigger gangs in the city. 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. They believed they would be driven around Chatswood, have a few puffs of marijuana and would then go home. As well as these men who went to trial, there were four other men who subsequently pleaded guilty to participating in this spate of sexual assaults. Australia's law defines rape as "unlawful sexual act with another person by force; without their consent." 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. 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. The damage is extensive, like all the other apartments in the area. What they were asked to decide was whether these three men, or any one of them, had committed the criminal offences with which they had been charged and they could only decide the accused had committed those offences, or any of them, if they were unanimously satisfied of that beyond reasonable doubt. 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. Latest news 5 Brian Lipscomb When the victim went to get into the car, however, she saw two other men there whom she did not know and did not expect would be there. Lebanon has a population of approximately 4.6 million, with 18 recognised distinct religious . Relatives have legally . 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,. A number of the men penetrated her vagina with their fingers. At first they resisted, but we made them believe that respect is something every child deserves, but that they needed to take action to earn that respect, he says. These are questions that will probably never be answered. Its just amazing to see how much traction it got, Diana Abbas, director of Impact Lebanon, says. Killing and shooting and illegal activity have become part of daily life. 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. 'It seemed clear to me that these men were sending out a message to the community in Sydney,' he writes. It was nearly midnight. Sports 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. The closest thing to non-white allies we have is . It was because the police had given up fighting back. It came as a surprise to me that nothing was going to be presented to me by counsel for Bilal Skaf. Under a large number of refugees, there were also several extended clans that already in Lebanon were deeply entrenched in organized crime. All rights reserved. She was reading a book of English literature, when a group of men led by Mohammed Skaf surrounded her and commenced to assault her indecently. Hamzy, 44, was gunned down in the . 'What the Skaf gang did was to enable multiple men to defile and degrade four young women. That is not the law. I was lucky; I got a second chance. The latest death toll stands at over 150 but is expected to climb. Counsel for each of the other accused, as well as the Crown, then attacked Bilal Skaf in cross-examination, suggesting he was a liar. 18:49 EST 27 May 2018. I wont be packing up., For Melki, staying in Lebanon isnt simply about a place of residence, its about justice. For thousands of Lebanese Australians residing in Lebanon, the opportunity to return to Australia at any point provides a psychological safety net. The main center of Arab organized crime is Sydney, with a significant community of 120,000, followed by Melbourne. 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. The three of them lived with their parents in houses in the suburbs surrounding Bankstown. 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. I have no intention of attempting to justify my sentences. As the French president Emmanuel Macron toured the devastated scenes in Beirut on Thursday, a Lebanese woman could be heard urging the president to not give money to the corrupt government. Macron replied, I guarantee you, this aid will not go to corrupt hands.. They made very little attempt to cover their tracks. The assailants broke the door and its lock into the archive room. By this time, she had been kidnapped and raped vaginally, orally and anally more than forty times by fourteen men. The two girls were then abandoned in the middle of the night in an area they did not know and forced to humiliate themselves by seeking assistance at around midnight from two people who were returning home from a social event. Political overview. 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