The population is diverse, having a large Christian religious base, being mostly Maronite Catholics, while also having a large Muslim group of Sunni branch of Islam.. Lebanon, in both its modern-day form as the Lebanese state . 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. His co-accused on the other hand, were quiet and restrained in their manner. And these guys are well armed. 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 . Often different rival criminal families are interlocked in feuds, resulting in a fair amount of violence. Women's rights activists had long demanded that Article . Within these neighbourhoods lies the ravaged home of award-winning Lebanese-Australian journalist Rania Abouzeid. The men in the red van also sexually assaulted them in the same fashion, as well as punching them and kicking them. These two girls did not expect to be driven over the Harbour Bridge. The last person to plead guilty was a friend of Mohammed Skaf. Significant numbers of their families served in Australian forces during World War I. 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. 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. Migrants are, on the whole, far less likely to commit serious crimes than the Australian born population; A small number of migrant groups defy this trend and have higher rates of crime; When asking why some groups have higher rates of crime we cannot simply equate criminality with the culture. Source: AAP. Skaf, through his counsel, suggested the two girls consented to everything that happened but that, of course, had difficulties since he not only sexually assaulted these girls, but those in the gang, including him, assaulted them and robbed them of their jewellery, their watches, their mobile phones and their money. Called next to him in the front seat, but she indicated that there was no evidence of his involvement in the crime, but only wanted him as a witness to it. This also caused these girls great concern. ShiaChat.com may be unavailable periodically Saturday night to Sunday evening while we migrate to new servers and perform some necessary updates. 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. It seems that the police learned from him that the woman had stabbed his friend as well. The crime was comparable to Lebanese gang rapes in Sydney. Praying for the injured, missing & dead, she wrote on Twitter. 'I have thought of this over the years,' Finane writes. There were 72 drive-by shootings in Sydney in the first half of this year one every 2 days most of which took place in Bankstown, the City of Liverpool further west and in Sydneys inner-west. Factors such as unemployment, education, socio-economic disadvantage and lack of access to services have more bearing than ethnicity on crime rates. 'What the Skaf gang did was to enable multiple men to defile and degrade four young women. The sheer scale of it, and that it sounds like it was completely avoidable. Many among Australia's Lebanese community trace their families' arrival back to the 1960s and 1970s, when the number of Lebanese-born residents tripled to 33,424. Counsel for each of the other accused addressed the jury then. 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. Culture 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. At the time, Mohammed Skaf was still a schoolboy and attended the same school as the victim, to whom he was known as 'Sam'. Crimes under Lebanese laws may not be considered offences in Australia. 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. Manorama Online That was an attraction, too. I will clean up, I will repair what I can repair, and then Ill live there. 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. Without Bilal Skaf leading them, perhaps they will come to see that there is a way forward. Now retired from the District Court and back in private practice, Finnane has written about this terrible chapter in the country's criminal annals in a memoir about his life on the bench and at the bar. Australian society and government were mostly doing this until Bowen's speech. Learn how your comment data is processed. To my mind, the community deserved to be protected from Bilal Skaf for many years. In other words, each man forced his penis into her mouth and ejaculated. This large group of men got out of this van. business 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. and Lebanon were processed at a higher rate than the Australian-born in each of the five years. They also robbed the girls. But the central bank, Banque du Liban, led by former Merrill Lynch banker Riad Salameh . Each of Ghanem and Hajeid's counsel put forward arguments that they had not been properly identified and were not present. 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. Yet, the new gangland war fails to capture the imagination. 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. He later pleaded guilty to some of the offences and when he did, I directed that he not be identified by his name. This meant that the Crown could seek my consent to cross-examine him to show that he was a man of bad character. What made this trial startlingly different from most rape trials of which I was aware were four matters: 1. 'It seemed clear to me that these men were sending out a message to the community in Sydney,' he writes. 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. Sports You do what you can.. There are certainly criminal groups you could describe as Middle Eastern in origin but the lines are now blurring, he tells TIME. A former minister once asked me, hasnt the Australian embassy got a little aid budget? I asked what for, he said he wanted to put new street lighting on his street. Bartlem says that request was one of many, which included a Lebanese politician seeking all-expense-paid trips to Australia. All except Bilal Skaf are now out of jail. 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 crime shocked the small town of Ashford and devastated the Australian South Sea Islander community of Elizabeth. Australian police have arrested more than 200 people involved in organised crime after infiltrating an encrypted messaging app that opened up nearly 25 million messages about "industrial-scale". Skaf did all the talking and suggested a trip in a car and puffing some marijuana. economy The plan was to kidnap, degrade, sexually assault and humiliate. But these days its worse. They could not suggest the girls consented to sexual intercourse because they claimed not to have been there. She was then dumped at a train station after being hosed down. Conviction of Skaf was inevitable. To condemn the racialisation of crime is not to deny that there are Lebanese Australians or Vietnamese Australians who commit crimes. '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. J., Noble, G. Poynting, S. and Tabar, P. (2000) Kebabs, Kids, Cops and Crime. This trial concerned violent sexual assaults on a young woman of 18 who was travelling home by train on an afternoon on 30 August 2000. Single expats: 1.773 USD. 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. But material losses, even huge painful ones, are things that one day can be replaced. She was also raped vaginally by another man who also forced oral sex on her. France His attitude was the same throughout the trial. In Australia crimes are legally classified as either indictable or non-indictable. It was important that I told the jury this because each of the girls had certainly agreed to get in the white van. 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. None of these young women will ever forget their experience at the hands of this gang.'. 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? . 26 May . The main activities of Arab gangs in Australia are narcotics and weapons trafficking, extortion, prostitution, car theft and money laundering. 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. The closest thing to non-white allies we have is . Stephen Gibbs for Daily Mail Australia
Latest news Lebanese Crime, Official Cowardice In Australia. That much was confirmed by Lieutenant Colonel Rony Ghanem of Lebanons Internal Security Force. Europe 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. Much of that support is being directed virtually to a grassroots online fundraising drive based in London. I remanded all of them in custody. Expat families: 3.413 USD. In analogy with Australia, Arab organized crime also came to Germany following the Lebanese Civil War. National; Crime; How Skaf rape gang trapped their victims. Knowing this much corruption gives me more reason not to leave Lebanon. I considered that I should say these words because it was important that the jury and anyone listening to the trial, including the accused, have a full realisation that a woman has to do nothing more than refuse consent. I was lucky; I got a second chance. 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. I then summed up the entire case, dealing with all the evidence, all the arguments and the law that applied. 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 devastation has profoundly touched Australias 250,000-strong Lebanese community, with the immediate sense of despair now transitioning to a desperate urge to assist. Bilal Skaf did most of the talking to the girls and called himself 'Adam'. "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. 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. International The Ryan-inspired OCR had just six crimes. God damn, you see one blonde person from Turkey or Lebanon and you think that there's pure whites in that country. The first community of Lebanese in Australia were Maronite Christians, quickly followed by a large Muslim community. However, data also suggests that the city has been experiencing a steady rise in crime rates for the past three years. 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. Since then, migration has significantly reduced and growth rates have become steady. This surprising evidence was used by the Crown to bolster its case about identification. But below the surface of this lower-middle class success story is a Middle Eastern ghetto terrorized by members of its community. 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. 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.. #23. Stephen Gibbs for Daily Mail Australia. Those involved in these crimes committed them between 10 August and 30 August 2000 on three separate occasions. When he gave evidence, Bilal Skaf was cocky in his manner and almost contemptuous of the Crown prosecutor. The identities of the men in the red van on 10 August have never been established. There were other standard instructions thenthe trial began. The press was also prevented from providing any likenesses or descriptions of the accused or their racial origins. Bilal Skaf raped her vaginally and another man, whom she could not identify, also raped her vaginally. 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. Average rent in Sydney. [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. Surprised by Lebanese officials audaciously asking for Australian money for personal reasons, Bartlem refused to process their requests further. His demeanour in the court room said that. There was no application that I should do otherwise. He did not believe he would be caught. Thus, the Crown Prosecutor and the counsel for Hajeid and Ghanem joined forces to attack Bilal Skaf. There was also evidence that each of the accused and the men in the red van abused the girls, calling them 'sluts' and threatened retribution on them if either of them had VD or AIDS. 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. Its just amazing to see how much traction it got, Diana Abbas, director of Impact Lebanon, says. I do not believe he will ever acknowledge the seriousness of what he did. 4. I think the sentences struck a chord with the public generally because the attacks were predatory and carefully planned. They wanted wide publicity. COVID-19 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. 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. Lebanese people have become integrated the most in Australian society. (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. Each of them also denied agreeing at any time, in the van or in the park, to oral sex with these men and the men in the red van. 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. I cannot say what will happen to these men. Lebanese-Christians have been immigrating to Australia for a very long time now and they have assimilated extremely well into Australian society. However, these crimes were of secondary importance. 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 trial was quite tense. The . Why did the gang first of all go to a shopping centre at Chatswood? 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. 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. In the face of such catastrophic ruin, the only option local residents had was to help. They are also willing to purchase from Chinese importers and to wholesale to other groups, such as Romanian and Lebanese dealers. 'One thing was obvious to me - Bilal Skaf wanted the victims to talk about what happened, to pass on their terror. This was a criminal conspiracy involving two groups of men, that was carefully coordinated by mobile phones. Earlier we met Redfern-based Frank Hakim, the first major Lebanese criminal in Sydney, and younger men such as Louis Bayeh and Danny Karam. He not be considered offences in Australia were Maronite Christians, quickly followed by a large community. 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