It was about 9pm at this stage. The first found that Middle-Eastern Australians reported more discrimination compared with non-Middle-Eastern Australians. By 2016, the year of Australia . By KAREEM CHEHAYEB February 27, 2023. She does not have to fight to the death to protect herself from sexual assault. Stars: Travis Fimmel, Jemmason Power, Talijah Blackman-Corowa, Eden Cassady Votes: 2,921 3. The former ambassador is no stranger to Lebanese corruption, having fielded astonishing requests from Lebanese officials in his time there seeking Australian aid money for self-fulfilling purposes. France Expat families: 2.640 USD. 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. 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. Lebanese move to west Africa, escaping the crisis at home A new wave of migrants has come looking for jobs Jun 10th 2021 W HEN BANKS started to fail and protesters began filling the streets in. In my view, all of these men remain a continuing threat to the Sydney community and particularly to young women. 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!' In other words, each man forced his penis into her mouth and ejaculated. 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. Average rent in Melbourne. This then meant there was not sufficient evidence against him of identification. I directed that he be known only as 'H', but his identity was not revealed in this first trial. I then summed up the entire case, dealing with all the evidence, all the arguments and the law that applied. An estimate of the total Lebanese population in Australia, consisting of Lebanese-born and their descendants, is approaching 250,000. 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. 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. sport Subsequent migration was steady until an influx occurred surrounding the Arab . News The Lebanese-born population of Australia stood at 70,325 persons in the 1996 census. This large group of men got out of this van. There was no application that I should do otherwise. 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. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Crimes under Lebanese laws may not be considered offences in Australia. Each girl was questioned by the Crown prosecutor first and then cross-examined by each of the counsel for the accused. I live in the hyphen between those two identities, Abouzeid says, now en route to Beirut to salvage her home. Bilal Skaf did most of the talking to the girls and called himself 'Adam'. 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. investment 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. He remained the dominant figure and was the person who directed everything that later happened on that night in the park at Greenacre. If you ever hear him speak, you would never believe it. He and the others who accompanied him then dragged the unfortunate girl to the middle of the park where they pulled of her clothes and proceeded to run their hands over her body. Dec 13, 2005. 'Each sentence was framed so that there could be some hope of release but, in my mind, the protection of the community was more important than early release. The two victims were schoolgirls who were wandering around a shopping centre at Chatswood on 10 August 2000 about nine o'clock at night. However, when the van finally stopped, it was at a park in Greenacre. In my time there, Australia gave millions [to aid efforts in Lebanon], he says, explaining that Australian funds are transferred directly through the head offices of UN agencies or humanitarian organisations. 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. 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. Many of the rapists have never been identified and police fear there were more victims who did not come forward. new Stephen Gibbs for Daily Mail Australia. 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. It is a common matter during the process of sentencing criminal offenders that their counsel would present psychological evidence, sometimes psychiatric evidence and other evidence to create as strong a subjective case for the offender as could be presented. 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. That much was confirmed by Lieutenant Colonel Rony Ghanem of Lebanons Internal Security Force. 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. (MORE:The Ones That Didnt Make It: Australia-Bound Refugees Languish in Indonesia), In the last few decades unfortunately we have not had peace in Lebanon, Pierre Semaan, of the Australian Lebanese Christian Foundation, tells TIME. 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 Canada also in the Triple Frontier in South America. 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. One of the dead was Sarkis Abboud, 61 years old, and the second was his friend, Tony Yazbek, two years younger. A mobile phone was then used by someone in this group to secure the attendance of another group who arrived in a car. The plan was to kidnap, degrade, sexually assault and humiliate. This went on for some time and eventually Mohammed Skaf used a mobile phone to summon his brother Bilal. He agreed that his client showed no remorse and no contrition. There was no obvious reason. J., Noble, G. Poynting, S. and Tabar, P. (2000) Kebabs, Kids, Cops and Crime. Pluto Press, Annandale NSW. Many months later he pleaded guilty to a series of sexual offences that included the events of this night. Corona 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. I will clean up, I will repair what I can repair, and then Ill live there. Lebanese organized crime syndicates generally are active globally, largely due to the mass Arab population. World Coronavirus 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. Lebanese migration to Australia occurred in the three main waves. The first occurred from 1880 to 1947 when many Maronite, Melkite and Orthodox Christians migrated. Skaf did all the talking and suggested a trip in a car and puffing some marijuana. Bilal Skaf was the eldest and was about 21 years of age. My apartment, like others close to the blast, is . The crime was comparable to Lebanese gang rapes in Sydney. Lebanon was still politically dysfunctional and rivalries had left it without a president for most of 2016. Ill work till the end to help save this country from this corrupt mafia government., Beirut blast timeline: what we know and what we don't, Beirut explosion: anger at officials grows after missed warnings, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. 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. But material losses, even huge painful ones, are things that one day can be replaced. 'I reject this complaint as well,' he writes. Of these, 52.5 per cent were males and 47.5 per cent were females. Stephen Gibbs for Daily Mail Australia The crime shocked the small town of Ashford and devastated the Australian South Sea Islander community of Elizabeth. Significant numbers of their families served in Australian forces during World War I. newspaper In the face of such catastrophic ruin, the only option local residents had was to help. The Australian Embassy in Beirut, opened in 1967, was the third Australian Embassy to be established in the Middle East. The devastation in Beirut has profoundly touched Australias 250,000-strong Lebanese community. Lebanon.. This was also the position for the assaults and the robberies committed on the two victims. 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. 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. The gang assaulted the two girls, by punching and kicking them and, of course, by dragging them across a park by the neck. Within these neighbourhoods lies the ravaged home of award-winning Lebanese-Australian journalist Rania Abouzeid. 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 main activities of Arab gangs in Australia are narcotics and weapons trafficking, extortion, prostitution, car theft and money laundering. RELATED: Manhunt under way after shooting in Sydney suburb. Criminal organizations are mostly based around extended crime families with a large number of associates from their community. None generated anything like the public attention these trials drew. 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. . Until this point, Hajeid and Ghanem had been on bail. Women's rights activists had long demanded that Article . Lebanese organized crime syndicates generally are active . The first community of Lebanese in Australia were Maronite Christians, quickly followed by a large Muslim community. 26 May . It came as a surprise to me that nothing was going to be presented to me by counsel for Bilal Skaf. Little is known regarding the health and lifestyle behaviours of Australians of Lebanese ethnicity. Yet, the new gangland war fails to capture the imagination. Australia enjoys friendly bilateral relations with Lebanon, underpinned by strong people-to-people links. Terror in Sydney: The Unspeakable Crimes of Bilal Skaf's Lebanese Rape Gang (Crime Documentary) To give you an idea of what to expect, here are some rent averages for the most popular cities in Australia. Conviction of Skaf was inevitable. wouldnt think twice tbh. rancho bernardo country club membership cost; About. All the windows were broken, the doors blown up, she says. Factors such as unemployment, education, socio-economic disadvantage and lack of access to services have more bearing than ethnicity on crime rates. Shimbiris VIP 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 think the sentences struck a chord with the public generally because the attacks were predatory and carefully planned. The passion is there and so is the willingness to help, Rebecca Maakasa, a 23-year-old Melburnian, says. Another car then pulled up which had in it, amongst others, 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. I came to my apartment to see the damage. To condemn the racialisation of crime is not to deny that there are Lebanese Australians or Vietnamese Australians who commit crimes. 11:06 EST 27 May 2018 It was non-stop, he says. None of these young women will ever forget their experience at the hands of this gang.'. A number of the men penetrated her vagina with their fingers. This article (a transcribed speech by former Australian Police Detective Tim Priest) gives an important look at why there was "white riot" on the Cronulla beaches. Football Fortunately she wasnt home at the time. The main center of Arab organized crime is Sydney, with a significant community of 120,000, followed by Melbourne. They wanted wide publicity. Lebanese (and I went to school with a lot of them) don't, they hate Australia's, they hate our way of life and they don't want to . Relatives have legally . God damn, you see one blonde person from Turkey or Lebanon and you think that there's pure whites in that country. Frank Hakim, who emigrated to Australia at the age of 20 or so, was the first prominent Lebanese criminal. Authorities have stopped Australians and Australian-Lebanese dual nationals, including mothers with children, from leaving Lebanon. They were classified as a Turk due to Lebanon being a province of the Ottoman Empire at that time. They were followed by other groups of criminals of Lebanese descent, many of whom, in contrast to their predecessors, preferred to remain in the part of Sydney where Keep Reading Tri Minh Tran Lebanon's murder and theft crimes have increased by 144 percent amid the ongoing national crisis compared to the same period last year, according to a study conducted by the Beirut-based . After finishing school, Basha became involved in more serious crimes. You do what you can.. Counsel for each of the other accused, as well as the Crown, then attacked Bilal Skaf in cross-examination, suggesting he was a liar. UAE 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. I do not believe he will ever acknowledge the seriousness of what he did. Its just amazing to see how much traction it got, Diana Abbas, director of Impact Lebanon, says. I have no intention of attempting to justify my sentences. Ghanem was convicted of various offences at this trial but was later acquitted by direction of the Court of Criminal Appeal, which ruled that certain evidence tendered by the Crown, and allowed by me to be given in the trial, should not have been admitted. . 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. They could not suggest the girls consented to sexual intercourse because they claimed not to have been there. Latest news Finnnane sentenced Bilal Skaf to a maximum sentence of 55 years in prison with a minimum term of 40 years. 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. Bilal Skaf raped her vaginally and another man, whom she could not identify, also raped her vaginally. 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. America Criminal organizations however often transcend religious and cultural barriers, with members of the Sunni communities all involved in the same criminal organizations.[3]. I remanded all of them in custody. 'What the Skaf gang did was to enable multiple men to defile and degrade four young women. The press was also prevented from providing any likenesses or descriptions of the accused or their racial origins. The number of perpetrators of these crimes has been climbing steadily in recent years, with around six thousand imprisoned in 2021, compared to around half of this number who were imprisoned for. Bilal Skaf and up to eleven other men who were never identified, then turned up in a van sometime later. It is often difficult to predict whether there will be rehabilitation. Source: AAP. 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. The largest wave of migration from Lebanon occurred between 1976 and 1981 during the Lebanese Civil War. Finnane has compared the Skaf gang's depravity to outrages committed by invading armies in times of war. I continue to hold that view. The theft occurred in a tightly secured area, further reflecting the cash-strapped country's continued decay. Lebanese Migration to Australia There have been three main waves of immigration from Lebanon to Australia. His demeanour in the court room said that. Australian society and government were mostly doing this until Bowen's speech. Im Lebanese Australian and Im proud of both parts of my identity. #23. A 44-year-old woman killed two Lebanese residing in Melbourne, the capital of the state of Victoria in the southeast of Australia. Lebanese mafia is a Colloquial term for organized crime groups which origin from Lebanon and Levant.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 Canada also in the Triple Frontier in South America. 'During the sentencing process at the end of the Skaf trials, I expressed the view that what this gang did was worse than murder. 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. 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. In the case of the Lebanese in Australia , specifically Sydney, they took this to another level and built a bad reputation in a number of areas: organised crime, petty crime (robbing and beating up people), questionable business practices (famous for not paying for services rendered or under delivering). Both of the Skafs were convicted. National News Agency staff in Beirut found a broken . 'I have thought of this over the years,' Finane writes. With all of us getting used to working on Zoom and Slack, its become easier to work with people from different cities.. 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. Much of that support is being directed virtually to a grassroots online fundraising drive based in London. The identities of the men in the red van on 10 August have never been established. So that putting a penis in the mouth of a woman, in law, was sexual intercourse. I merely imposed sentences on a number of offenders. Evidence was presented to show the layout of the park, the positioning of lights and buildings in the park and evidence was given by the complainant that these events happened at night time. While Lebanese settled all over Australia, the majority have consistently settled in NSW and particularly in Sydney. From 1880 to the 1920s, mainly Maronite, Melkite and Orthodox Christians arrived on a small scale. 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Apart from denying that any offences had happened and claiming that the two girls consented to everything, his evidence also placed Ghanem and Hajeid at the park in Greenacre and confirmed that they also had taken part in sexual activity with the two girls. Bilal Skaf was one of the people who then approached the victim whom he grabbed by the hair. 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. 2. There were other standard instructions thenthe trial began. And that it happened because of incompetence and corruption.. You just want more, Basha says. If the value is 0, it means it is perceived as very low, and if the value is 100, it means it is perceived as very high. Will this be the catalyst that prompts the move home? They are also willing to purchase from Chinese importers and to wholesale to other groups, such as Romanian and Lebanese dealers. I said to myself, I cant see this anymore, theres nothing I can do here, Im just going to go to the hospital to give blood and see how I can help.. It is also possible that there were other victims who have never come forward. Skaf clearly was the leader. However, data also suggests that the city has been experiencing a steady rise in crime rates for the past three years. 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). My views on sentence were not those of the judges of the Court of Criminal Appeal, but their sentences prevail. 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,. 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. This is probably Katter's most famous and funny video, wait until the end. During her ordeal the woman was called an 'Aussie pig', told she was going to get it 'Leb-style' and asked if 'Leb c*** tasted better than Aussie c***'. The most common crimes involve physical altercations, trespassing, burglary, and damaging public or private property. If I opened up my lunchbox and pulled out a Lebanese roll, I would get hassled. The Triple Frontier, a tri-border area along the junction of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil, is often used by Lebanese groups connected to political parties but also by Arab Mafia groups as a heaven for smuggling and money laundering. It is a crime that assaults human dignity. id send all the ones in Australia back to lebanon and then drop a bomb. Praying for the injured, missing & dead, she wrote on Twitter. 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. In the mid-1960s he obtained the protection of Lennie McPherson and proceeded to provide protection himself to Lebanese and other ethnic gaming clubs. However, the victims' descriptions of the other men who attacked them were quite vague, as could be expected. Lebanon's parliament has scrapped a law under which a rapist could be exempt from punishment if he married his victim, state media report. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. 33. Who could believe anyone would consent to being assaulted, robbed, abused and threatened? By Without Bilal Skaf leading them, perhaps they will come to see that there is a way forward. 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. . health In the early 1980s, as a young detective I was attached to the Drug Squad at . They believed they would be driven around Chatswood, have a few puffs of marijuana and would then go home. 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. Why did the gang first of all go to a shopping centre at Chatswood? Five computers were stolen along with the servers, Lebanese TV channel LBCI reported. Its just a mess. Abouzeid was in Melbourne at the time of the blast, relying on relatives to send photos of the destruction. 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. 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 criminal justice system judged and punished the perpetrators. All except Bilal Skaf are now out of jail. 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. This means that many other gangs of boys are doing the same crimes. 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.
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