Luckily, a man came around the corner, saw her plight and approached her. Many of these diaspora networks, including Impact Lebanon, emerged following mass anti-government protests in Lebanon in October 2019. The men in the van departed quickly and the man took her to his flat, calmed her down and helped her call a friend who eventually came and took her home. There was no doubt in my mind that when Chami and Hajeid arrived, they both knew that this unfortunate young woman had already been raped in the toilets at Bankstown and in a car in the car park at the Bankstown Trotting Club. 'All of them were examples of depravity and cruelty. At the time, Mohammed Skaf was still a schoolboy and attended the same school as the victim, to whom he was known as 'Sam'. I think the sentences struck a chord with the public generally because the attacks were predatory and carefully planned. 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 . Apart from the three men I have indicated who were on trial, there was also in the car they were travelling in, which was a white van, a young man with an intellectual disability, fourteen years of age, who later pleaded guilty to a series of sexual assaults. He made and received most of the Arabic language phone calls, which were used to tell the men in the red van who he had with him and where they were going. These are questions that will probably never be answered. Finally, the rural areas of Sydney are home to small-time gangs who act as enforcers for the bigger gangs in the city. 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. Women's rights activists had long demanded that Article . 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. 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. In the third trial, the accused were Bilal Skaf, Mohammed Skaf, Mohammed Ghanem and Mahmoud Chami. The criminal justice system judged and punished the perpetrators. Arab Book When people have lost their homes and families, you dont think twice. The 1995 NSW Legislative Council standing committee on social issues reported that while Lebanese-Australian youth comprise 0.9% of . Often different rival criminal families are interlocked in feuds, resulting in a fair amount of violence. In the face of such catastrophic ruin, the only option local residents had was to help. 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. Im still in a state of shock. they deserve nothing less and we'd be making the world a better place. The largest wave of migration from Lebanon occurred between 1976 and 1981 during the Lebanese Civil War. The same trial process occurred as happened in the first trial and during my summing up I made the same remarks about the entitlement of a woman to say no. 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. All except Bilal Skaf are now out of jail. It was nearly midnight. The girls in the car were very concerned at this point, but too scared to get out and run away. He remained the dominant figure and was the person who directed everything that later happened on that night in the park at Greenacre. 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. Video 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. health From 1880 to the 1920s, mainly Maronite, Melkite and Orthodox Christians arrived on a small scale. [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. 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. The men in the red van also sexually assaulted them in the same fashion, as well as punching them and kicking them. 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. Another car then pulled up which had in it, amongst others, Mohammed Skaf. Political overview. 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. There was no obvious reason. 'I reject this complaint as well,' he writes. While Lebanese settled all over Australia, the majority have consistently settled in NSW and particularly in Sydney. The earth-shattering explosion, caused by the unsafe storage of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate at Beiruts port, damaged every part of the city of 2 million people. Stephen Gibbs for Daily Mail Australia. I was lucky; I got a second chance. He also clicked his fingers towards my court officers, ordering them to get him water. World 4. 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. The main center of Arab organized crime is Sydney, with a significant community of 120,000, followed by Melbourne. Stars: Travis Fimmel, Jemmason Power, Talijah Blackman-Corowa, Eden Cassady Votes: 2,921 3. It is often difficult to predict whether there will be rehabilitation. However, the victims' descriptions of the other men who attacked them were quite vague, as could be expected. 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 . 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. 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". 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. entertainment The fact is that right up to the present, none of the perpetrators have ever said why they became involved in these crimes. It is across the street from the Lebanese central bank in Beirut, the Associated Press reported. Within these neighbourhoods lies the ravaged home of award-winning Lebanese-Australian journalist Rania Abouzeid. He extended his criminal activities and eventually became known as "the Lebanese . Surprised by Lebanese officials audaciously asking for Australian money for personal reasons, Bartlem refused to process their requests further. The 1997-98 statistics produce high alleged offender rates . 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. 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. 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. There were others who have never been brought to trial. 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. 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. All rights reserved. To condemn the racialisation of crime is not to deny that there are Lebanese Australians or Vietnamese Australians who commit crimes. The first community of Lebanese in Australia were Maronite Christians, quickly followed by a large Muslim community. 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. All the windows were broken, the doors blown up, she says. The complainant, who had been sexually assaulted by fourteen men something like forty times over four hours, could not identify him. National; Crime; How Skaf rape gang trapped their victims. TV In the witness box, she clutched a small doll in her hands and gave firm and clear evidence. It is a crime that assaults human dignity. Unwelcome at school, too much discipline at home, so where do these teenagers go to find respect? Trad asks. COVID-19 It seems that the police learned from him that the woman had stabbed his friend as well. You just want more, Basha says. 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. 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. The identity of the four men in the red van has never properly been revealed. The main center of Arab organized crime is Sydney, with a significant community of 120,000, followed by Melbourne. Bilal Skaf again had vaginal sex with her. Finnnane sentenced Bilal Skaf to a maximum sentence of 55 years in prison with a minimum term of 40 years. This was also the position for the assaults and the robberies committed on the two victims. If a person who is guilty, pleads guilty, anxiety and stress to the victims is removed and it is reasonable to give lesser sentences. '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. 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.. [4] Some of the more notorious Arab mafia families include the infamous el-koura Younes Clan, the Shams Clan the Al Zein Clan[5] and the Miri Clan from Bremen. Frequently, whilst sitting in the dock, he clicked his fingers towards his counsel, summoning him over. 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 . 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. I have no intention of attempting to justify my sentences. What was it that caused Bilal Skaf to carefully plan this series of attacks on young women in Sydney? There was no doubt about Skaf's involvement because, apart from his own admissions, the DNA evidence linking him to the events was very clear. ShiaChat.com may be unavailable periodically Saturday night to Sunday evening while we migrate to new servers and perform some necessary updates. 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. 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 . Average rent in Canberra. Earlier we met Redfern-based Frank Hakim, the first major Lebanese criminal in Sydney, and younger men such as Louis Bayeh and Danny Karam. ', 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.'. They made very little attempt to cover their tracks. She does not have to fight to the death to protect herself from sexual assault. 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.. By 2016, the year of Australia . 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. 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. 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. Football But these days its worse. 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. 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 . politics 'I do not think it is correct. Crimes under Lebanese laws may not be considered offences in Australia. 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. I also told the jury that 'this is not a court of morals' and explained that they might not approve of the conduct of some of the participants because they thought they were acting immorally, but that was not the question at all. 2. Subsequent migration was steady until an influx occurred surrounding the Arab . America 11:06 EST 27 May 2018 Why was the third victim plucked from a train? Criminal organizations are mostly based around extended crime families with a large number of associates from their community. But the central bank, Banque du Liban, led by former Merrill Lynch banker Riad Salameh . What is still difficult for me to understand is why this serious criminal conspiracy involving so many young men was launched. The victim managed to break free and run across the park to a telephone box. new I directed that he be known only as 'H', but his identity was not revealed in this first trial. I hope that those who have been released do rehabilitate or, at the very least, that they do not re-offend. In the early 1980s, as a young detective I was attached to the Drug Squad at . 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. 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!' It was non-stop, he says. 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. Present governor of the State of NSW is a distinguished Lebanese-Christian woman. 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. 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