lebanese in australia crime

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. 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. It is a crime that assaults human dignity. 5 Brian Lipscomb 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". Unidentified thieves broke into the headquarters of Lebanon's state news agency and stole a server containing its photo archive, officials say. Bikie gangs such as the Nomads recruit heavily from among Lebanese Muslims, as have jihadist recruiters. Little is known regarding the health and lifestyle behaviours of Australians of Lebanese ethnicity. 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. ', 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.'. The trial was quite tense. 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? With all of us getting used to working on Zoom and Slack, its become easier to work with people from different cities.. Until this point, Hajeid and Ghanem had been on bail. I do not believe he will ever acknowledge the seriousness of what he did. 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 . A number of the men penetrated her vagina with their fingers. 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. And an otherwise law-abiding majority erect a wall of silence when dealing with police they regularly accuse and sue for thuggery and racial profiling. And given the history of government efforts to obtain information on race, Im not even sure its something we should be doing. 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. Sexual intercourse without consent was the principal crime contemplated and committed. 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. 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. Whatever they might have done in those centuries, the law is now perfectly clear - any woman is entitled to refuse consent to sexual intercourse at any time. It is also possible that there were other victims who have never come forward. Worldwide pandemic lockdowns have only made it easier for Lebanese expats to coordinate. Our initial goal was 10,000. But after seeing a close friend covered with petrol and set alight, he turned over a new leaf and began writing The Combination, a film about Lebanese schoolchildren who get caught up with gangs that won critical acclaim on release in 2010. 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***'. 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. 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. National; Crime; How Skaf rape gang trapped their victims. Learn how your comment data is processed. This then meant there was not sufficient evidence against him of identification. The victim managed to break free and run across the park to a telephone box. A 44-year-old woman killed two Lebanese residing in Melbourne, the capital of the state of Victoria in the southeast of Australia. Thus, the Crown Prosecutor and the counsel for Hajeid and Ghanem joined forces to attack Bilal Skaf. Single expats: 1.630 USD. Lebanese-Christians have been immigrating to Australia for a very long time now and they have assimilated extremely well into Australian society. Stars: Travis Fimmel, Jemmason Power, Talijah Blackman-Corowa, Eden Cassady Votes: 2,921 3. 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. 4. That is not the law. This went on for some time and eventually Mohammed Skaf used a mobile phone to summon his brother Bilal. wouldnt think twice tbh. As a policy, multiculturalism was introduced by immigration minister Al . 'These were not random attacks and, in my view, they were aimed at creating terror in the community. 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. At no point, however, did he identify the men in the red van. The young girl who was the victim of these rapes could identify Mohammed Skaf, whom she knew well. 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 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. It came as a surprise to me that nothing was going to be presented to me by counsel for Bilal Skaf. 2. 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. Arab world Arab Book He will remain a threat to the community. 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. It was obviously carefully planned and skilfully executed. Fortunately she wasnt home at the time. This was also the position for the assaults and the robberies committed on the two victims. One of Australia's most redneck outback parliamentarians, Bob Katter, is the descendant of Lebanese immigrants. The geographic heartland of Australias 100,000-strong Lebanese community, its red brick apartments and cement-sheet homes are peppered with mosques, musallas and churches. Her evidence was very powerful. 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. 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. In the mid-1960s he obtained the protection of Lennie McPherson and proceeded to provide protection himself to Lebanese and other ethnic gaming clubs. The first community of Lebanese in Australia were Maronite Christians, quickly followed by a large Muslim community. The Lebanese-born population of Australia stood at 70,325 persons in the 1996 census. France Finnane had been a judge of the New South District Court for a little more than a year when appointed to hear the Skaf gang trials, the first of which commenced on December 13, 2001. The commission of a crime that shocked the Lebanese, who numbered 70 to 90,000 between expatriates and descendants in the city. Significant numbers of their families served in Australian forces during World War I. Lebanese Migration to Australia There have been three main waves of immigration from Lebanon to Australia. Then another car arrived with the offenders Chami and two other men, one man known as Nike Sam. However, these crimes were of secondary importance. 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. Many months later he pleaded guilty to a series of sexual offences that included the events of this night. 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. Who could believe anyone would consent to being assaulted, robbed, abused and threatened? His attitude was the same throughout the trial. new All except Bilal Skaf are now out of jail. Skaf is now in Goulburn's Supermax prison serving a 31-year sentence with a minimum of 28 years. The crime was comparable to Lebanese gang rapes in Sydney. In the witness box, she clutched a small doll in her hands and gave firm and clear evidence. 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. 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. To my mind, the community deserved to be protected from Bilal Skaf for many years. Finnane has compared the Skaf gang's depravity to outrages committed by invading armies in times of war. 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. My apartment, like others close to the blast, is . Vietnamese Organised Crime in Australia . 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. Counsel for each of the other accused addressed the jury then. And these guys are well armed. When people have lost their homes and families, you dont think twice. [1] Due to the vast international Arab diaspora and along with a certain amount of organized criminals active in their respective communities, the Beqaa Valley has become one of the most infamous marijuana and hashish exporting regions in the world. In the early 1980s, as a young detective I was attached to the Drug Squad at . 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. 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 . He also clicked his fingers towards my court officers, ordering them to get him water. In other words, each man forced his penis into her mouth and ejaculated. If a person who is guilty, pleads guilty, anxiety and stress to the victims is removed and it is reasonable to give lesser sentences. And you, have you seen the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter in the sky of Barn? sport Another four men were in a red van that followed the white van. 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. Australia enjoys friendly bilateral relations with Lebanon, underpinned by strong people-to-people links. But the central bank, Banque du Liban, led by former Merrill Lynch banker Riad Salameh . health Expat families: 2.640 USD. 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 complainant, who had been sexually assaulted by fourteen men something like forty times over four hours, could not identify him. Stephen Gibbs for Daily Mail Australia "The passion is there. I live in the hyphen between those two identities, Abouzeid says, now en route to Beirut to salvage her home. His demeanour in the court room said that. None of these young women will ever forget their experience at the hands of this gang.'. They had hardly ever been over the Harbour Bridge and were quite concerned when that happened. He extended his criminal activities and eventually became known as "the Lebanese . In Australia crimes are legally classified as either indictable or non-indictable. The blast flattened the neighbourhoods closest to the port, such as Gemmayze and Mar Mikhael tourist hotspots and the heart of Beiruts famous nightlife, now as haunting as Stalingrad. 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. Factors such as unemployment, education, socio-economic disadvantage and lack of access to services have more bearing than ethnicity on crime rates. That is not the law. He acted throughout the trial as someone who wanted to be noticed. There was no obvious reason. In analogy with Australia, Arab organized crime also came to Germany following the Lebanese Civil War. The plan was to kidnap, degrade, sexually assault and humiliate. Skaf was talking on a mobile phone to other people in Arabic. They were an attack on society, but why? The Ryan-inspired OCR had just six crimes. Both of the Skafs were convicted. The main center of Arab organized crime is Sydney, with a significant community of 120,000, followed by Melbourne. To condemn the racialisation of crime is not to deny that there are Lebanese Australians or Vietnamese Australians who commit crimes. What is still difficult for me to understand is why this serious criminal conspiracy involving so many young men was launched. Although Lebanese are to be found throughout Australia . The two victims were schoolgirls who were wandering around a shopping centre at Chatswood on 10 August 2000 about nine o'clock at night. Its just a mess. Abouzeid was in Melbourne at the time of the blast, relying on relatives to send photos of the destruction. Shimbiris VIP Once you got into the zone where you are powerful and people are scared of you, you dont want to stop. 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. Single expats: 1.773 USD. 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. 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. Rania Abouzeids apartment in Beirut, close to the blast site. 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. 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. live broadcast Football He told them they could expect there to be media publicity and that they should ignore anything they read outside court. There are certainly criminal groups you could describe as Middle Eastern in origin but the lines are now blurring, he tells TIME. I cant tell what some of the things are in the photos, what they once were. Luckily, a man came around the corner, saw her plight and approached her. They are also willing to purchase from Chinese importers and to wholesale to other groups, such as Romanian and Lebanese dealers. "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. Id punch any Aussie kid who even looked at me., (MORE:Circle Sentencing: Alternative Justice in Australia). . 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. Many of the rapists have never been identified and police fear there were more victims who did not come forward. When he gave evidence, Bilal Skaf was cocky in his manner and almost contemptuous of the Crown prosecutor. Trad thinks the problem can be nipped in the bud by changing the way schools deal with Lebanese delinquents. 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. Instead of taking her to the Harbour Bridge, Mohammed Skaf drove her to a park in Greenacre. None of the accused or the victims had been drinking alcohol and none had been taking drugs, even though having marijuana was an inducement offered to the two girls. Subsequent migration was steady until an influx occurred surrounding the Arab . Deputy Commissioner for Investigations and Counter Terrorism Dave Hudson.Daniel Munoz You do what you can.. This was a criminal conspiracy involving two groups of men, that was carefully coordinated by mobile phones. At the time, Mohammed Skaf was still a schoolboy and attended the same school as the victim, to whom he was known as 'Sam'. While Lebanese settled all over Australia, the majority have consistently settled in NSW and particularly in Sydney. : Circle Sentencing: Alternative Justice in Australia crimes are legally classified as either indictable or.! 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