Single expats: 1.773 USD. 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. His co-accused on the other hand, were quiet and restrained in their manner. 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. Then another car arrived with the offenders Chami and two other men, one man known as Nike Sam. That is not the law. 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 gang assaulted the two girls, by punching and kicking them and, of course, by dragging them across a park by the neck. Africa Video Lebanese migration to Australia occurred in the three main waves. If a person who is guilty, pleads guilty, anxiety and stress to the victims is removed and it is reasonable to give lesser sentences. However, data also suggests that the city has been experiencing a steady rise in crime rates for the past three years. Crimes under Lebanese laws may not be considered offences in Australia. Skaf was talking on a mobile phone to other people in Arabic. (2001) The Lebanese . Deputy Commissioner for Investigations and Counter Terrorism Dave Hudson.Daniel Munoz With all of us getting used to working on Zoom and Slack, its become easier to work with people from different cities.. There was no application that I should do otherwise. 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. 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. Each of Ghanem and Hajeid's counsel put forward arguments that they had not been properly identified and were not present. Until this point, Hajeid and Ghanem had been on bail. Learn how your comment data is processed. We are afraid there is some connection between these guys here and the guys in Lebanon, he said during a three-month visit to Sydney earlier this year to exchange information on criminal syndicates with the New South Wales Police Forces Middle Eastern Crime Squad. , updated By Lebanese families across generations in both rural and urban areas, including changes over time in occupations, education, religion, community activities and family values. That sentence was modified several times upon appeal. World From the outset, the City of Bankstown in south-western Sydneys sprawling migrant belt is a picture of multiculturalism. Counsel for each of the other accused, as well as the Crown, then attacked Bilal Skaf in cross-examination, suggesting he was a liar. 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. 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. Life cannot. The first community of Lebanese in Australia were Maronite Christians, quickly followed by a large Muslim community. 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. 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. But these days its worse. 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. I live in the hyphen between those two identities, Abouzeid says, now en route to Beirut to salvage her home. However, although these cases attracted some media attention while the trials were proceeding, they passed largely with little comment.'. Europe I was always hopeful that the people I sentenced in other cases might see the point of rehabilitation and, undoubtedly, some of them did. Malayalam News Before we can solve it we need to understand it, he says, and Im not sure we do.. 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. Killing and shooting and illegal activity have become part of daily life. The crime was comparable to Lebanese gang rapes in Sydney. Authorities have stopped Australians and Australian-Lebanese dual nationals, including mothers with children, from leaving Lebanon. 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. By this time she was hysterical. 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. In the past there was a code among crime gangs in Sydney that bodies in the street were bad for business, says Michael Duffy, the author of Drive By, a new novel about a Lebanese crime family and the efforts of a bigoted, dispirited police force to lock them up. The Skaf gang used cunning methods to lure young women during a terrifying rampage in southwestern Sydney which changed the city forever. Lebanese organized crime syndicates generally are active globally, largely due to the mass Arab population. His counsel acknowledged the force of what I had said but again said that he would be presenting no evidence. 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. 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News In 2002, people born in Australia were imprisoned at a rate of 156 per 100,000 while those born overseas were imprisoned at a rate of 146 per 100,000. 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. Australia In Sydney, Disaffected Lebanese Kids Caught in Spiraling Gang Violence Facing racism at school and pressure at home, children from Middle Eastern families in Australia are dragged. It is a crime that assaults human dignity. 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. It seemed clear to me that these men were sending out a message to the community in Sydney. 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. I thought she was a particularly brave young woman who refused to give in to any of these suggestions. A 44-year-old woman killed two Lebanese residing in Melbourne, the capital of the state of Victoria in the southeast of Australia. Because the two complainants could only give vague descriptions of Hajeid and Ghanem, their counsel cross-examined the complainants to establish doubts about their identification. 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. They were quite friendly at school and he suggested that she come with him on a drive to go and look at the Harbour Bridge on a Saturday. 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. God damn, you see one blonde person from Turkey or Lebanon and you think that there's pure whites in that country. They also robbed the girls. In the mid-1960s he obtained the protection of Lennie McPherson and proceeded to provide protection himself to Lebanese and other ethnic gaming clubs. Arab Book This large group of men got out of this van. Bilal Skaf was the eldest and was about 21 years of age. When they got into the white van, the two girls discovered the presence of the other two men. Lebanese people have become integrated the most in Australian society. There are certainly criminal groups you could describe as Middle Eastern in origin but the lines are now blurring, he tells TIME. 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