lebanese in australia crime

She does not have to fight to the death to protect herself from sexual assault. [7], Last edited on 24 February 2023, at 19:36, Learn how and when to remove these template messages, Learn how and when to remove this template message, "Rising crime in northern Bekaa Valley hurting Hezbollah", "THE WORLD'S LARGEST DRUG FIELD -- (BY DENNIS EISENBERG) (Extension of Remarks - July 27, 1990)", "Schattenseiten der Einwanderergesellschaft - Brutale Familienbande", "Miri-Clan: Eine Familie, tief verstrickt ins Verbrechen - DIE WELT", "Terrorist and Organized Crime Groups in the Tri-Border Area of South America", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lebanese_mafia&oldid=1141378811, This page was last edited on 24 February 2023, at 19:36. His co-accused on the other hand, were quiet and restrained in their manner. Once Lebanese kids gets involved in gangs, theyre killed or in prison before they get a chance to grow up., There is no data available on the prevalence of criminality in Sydneys Lebanese community because people who are arrested are not legally required to give information on their ethnicity or heritage. 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 Skaf gang used cunning methods to lure young women during a terrifying rampage in southwestern Sydney which changed the city forever. Finnane has compared the Skaf gang's depravity to outrages committed by invading armies in times of war. A 44-year-old woman killed two Lebanese residing in Melbourne, the capital of the state of Victoria in the southeast of Australia. Some experienced criminal lawyers also expressed disagreements with Finnane's sentences, claiming he had no regard to the Skaf brothers' rehabilitation. 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. years have drawn attention to Lebanese crime and to police searches for suspects 'of Middle Eastern appearance'.10 Lebanese Muslim clerics such as Sheik Taj el-Din al Al-Hilali, known as the mufti or spiritual leader of Australia's Muslims and imam of the Sunni Mosque in Lakemba,11 or Sheikh Abdul Salam Zoud, are often in the news in . 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. 5 Brian Lipscomb Manorama Online I then summed up the entire case, dealing with all the evidence, all the arguments and the law that applied. In this case, only Bilal Skaf gave evidence. Taxpayers can be assured their money wont end up in the pockets of corrupt officials, according to Lex Bartlem, who served as Australian ambassador to Beirut between 2010 and 2014. 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. 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. Five computers were stolen along with the servers, Lebanese TV channel LBCI reported. 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. Perhaps the offenders did not believe any of the victims would ever tell the police. sport 'I reject this complaint as well,' he writes. The Ryan-inspired OCR had just six crimes. Im still in a state of shock. Bilal Skaf raped her vaginally and another man, whom she could not identify, also raped her vaginally. The last person to plead guilty was a friend of Mohammed Skaf. The Pursuit of Justice, published by New Holland Publishers, RRP $35, is available from all good book retailers or online at New Holland Publishers. He also clicked his fingers towards my court officers, ordering them to get him water. 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. id send all the ones in Australia back to lebanon and then drop a bomb. Bilal Skaf did most of the talking to the girls and called himself 'Adam'. For thousands of Lebanese Australians residing in Lebanon, the opportunity to return to Australia at any point provides a psychological safety net. Id punch any Aussie kid who even looked at me., (MORE:Circle Sentencing: Alternative Justice in Australia). In the park, each girl was dragged by the neck to a different part of the park and forced to let these men have oral sex with her. But to this day Finnane is regularly asked about the Skaf case, sometimes by strangers, at social functions and on other unexpected occasions. The first occurred from 1880 to 1947 when many Maronite, Melkite and Orthodox Christians migrated. Another car then pulled up which had in it, amongst others, Mohammed Skaf. His demeanour in the court room said that. He extended his criminal activities and eventually became known as "the Lebanese . I was the judge who dealt with these trials. 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. If you live in Melbourne, you are at moderate risk of theft and breaking. 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. Why did the gang first of all go to a shopping centre at Chatswood? 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. 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. 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. 'What caused the unprecedented public interest in the Skaf trials, what set them apart from all other sexual assault trials, was the repeated attacks in a short time frame by a gang with a carefully planned strategy,' Finnane writes. Australia enjoys friendly bilateral relations with Lebanon, underpinned by strong people-to-people links. 11:06 EST 27 May 2018 Who could believe anyone would consent to being assaulted, robbed, abused and threatened? 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. I have no intention of attempting to justify my sentences. I also told them to put out of their minds any religious or racial views they had. There was no obvious reason. The 1997-98 statistics produce high alleged offender rates . A number of the men penetrated her vagina with their fingers. 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. entertainment 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. 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. International 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. . 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. 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***'. Our initial goal was 10,000. One upstanding group of Lebanese males got sentences up to 49 years prison for kidnapping girls on the street and raping them. It is a crime that assaults human dignity. While Finnane's sentencing of the Skaf gang members was widely lauded and drew praise from many politicians, he was criticised privately by some other judges. However, Bilal Skaf and the other actual rapist had never met her before. I like Middle Eastern food. If I opened up my lunchbox and pulled out a Lebanese roll, I would get hassled. Koreans, growing numbers of Indians, and on the Lakemba side lots of Lebanese and other Arabs. 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. Still, the enormity of the tragedy requires a monumental effort to rebuild the shattered city. trot 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. 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. With all of us getting used to working on Zoom and Slack, its become easier to work with people from different cities.. On that day Bilal Skaf, Belal Hajeid and Mohammed Ghanem sat behind bullet-proof glass in the dock of a court room within Sydney's Downing Centre complex. What is still difficult for me to understand is why this serious criminal conspiracy involving so many young men was launched. And you, have you seen the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter in the sky of Barn? Present governor of the State of NSW is a distinguished Lebanese-Christian woman. 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. Trad thinks the problem can be nipped in the bud by changing the way schools deal with Lebanese delinquents. Growing up in western Sydney, I was bullied and picked on for everything I did and stood for. The aim of this study is to compare . . UAE Im Lebanese Australian and Im proud of both parts of my identity. 'All of them were examples of depravity and cruelty. 18:49 EST 27 May 2018. Australia's law defines rape as "unlawful sexual act with another person by force; without their consent." Each of Ghanem and Hajeid's counsel put forward arguments that they had not been properly identified and were not present. Life cannot. The criminal justice system judged and punished the perpetrators. 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. He told them they could expect there to be media publicity and that they should ignore anything they read outside court. Finally, the rural areas of Sydney are home to small-time gangs who act as enforcers for the bigger gangs in the city. ', 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.'. Ghanem's convictions for his participation in the attacks that were the subject of the first trial, however, were confirmed. The first community of Lebanese in Australia were Maronite Christians, quickly followed by a large Muslim community. 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. Counsel for each of the other accused addressed the jury then. 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. Although Lebanese are to be found throughout Australia . The passion is there and so is the willingness to help, Rebecca Maakasa, a 23-year-old Melburnian, says. Culture Little is known regarding the health and lifestyle behaviours of Australians of Lebanese ethnicity. I live in the hyphen between those two identities, Abouzeid says, now en route to Beirut to salvage her home. 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. Lebanon's parliament has scrapped a law under which a rapist could be exempt from punishment if he married his victim, state media report. 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 . they deserve nothing less and we'd be making the world a better place. The girls in the car were very concerned at this point, but too scared to get out and run away. 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. He was the gang boss and the organiser of everything that happened. 'What the Skaf gang did was to enable multiple men to defile and degrade four young women. Luckily, a man came around the corner, saw her plight and approached her. In analogy with Australia, Arab organized crime also came to Germany following the Lebanese Civil War. Authorities have stopped Australians and Australian-Lebanese dual nationals, including mothers with children, from leaving Lebanon. This meant that the Crown could seek my consent to cross-examine him to show that he was a man of bad character. Latest news 3. After being indecently assaulted on the train, she was then forced off the train and was taken up the steps of the Bankstown railway station. Lebanese organized crime syndicates generally are active . 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. 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. And that it happened because of incompetence and corruption.. Bilal Skaf again had vaginal sex with her. Police Recorded Incidents and Hate Crime: Australia 105 Police Recorded Incidents and Hate Crime Overseas 106 Immigrants as victims of crime 109 Bias in the Criminal Justice System 112 . Rania Abouzeids apartment in Beirut, close to the blast site. 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. Since then, migration has significantly reduced and growth rates have become steady. By this time, she had been kidnapped and raped vaginally, orally and anally more than forty times by fourteen men. He later pleaded guilty to some of the offences and when he did, I directed that he not be identified by his name. The existence of criminal activity among these communities is not the issue. From 1880 to the 1920s, mainly Maronite, Melkite and Orthodox Christians arrived on a small scale. 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,. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. live broadcast These are questions that will probably never be answered. 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. Women's rights activists had long demanded that Article . I was lucky; I got a second chance. 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. However, the victims' descriptions of the other men who attacked them were quite vague, as could be expected. 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