lebanese in australia crime

The complainant, who had been sexually assaulted by fourteen men something like forty times over four hours, could not identify him. 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 . There are certainly criminal groups you could describe as Middle Eastern in origin but the lines are now blurring, he tells TIME. 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. As the French president Emmanuel Macron toured the devastated scenes in Beirut on Thursday, a Lebanese woman could be heard urging the president to not give money to the corrupt government. Macron replied, I guarantee you, this aid will not go to corrupt hands.. 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. [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. Single expats: 1.630 USD. The trial for these ofences was particularly horrifying. Women's rights activists had long demanded that Article . His demeanour in the court room said that. Earlier we met Redfern-based Frank Hakim, the first major Lebanese criminal in Sydney, and younger men such as Louis Bayeh and Danny Karam. The criminal justice system judged and punished the perpetrators. The jury considered this very carefully and were out considering their verdicts for a number of days but, when they came back, they convicted the three accused on all charges. In 1996, 72 per cent of Lebanese in Australia lived in Sydney. Lebanon's parliament has scrapped a law under which a rapist could be exempt from punishment if he married his victim, state media report. A Year Later, Unanswered Questions and Bad Blood, The Nanjing Massacre: Scenes from a Hideous Slaughter 75 Years Ago, Blood Money: Tsunami Recovery Funds Go to Japans Whaling Industry. But material losses, even huge painful ones, are things that one day can be replaced. The first found that Middle-Eastern Australians reported more discrimination compared with non-Middle-Eastern Australians. Until this point, Hajeid and Ghanem had been on bail. Growing up in western Sydney, I was bullied and picked on for everything I did and stood for. 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. The people in the white van went through the city and stopped at a McDonald's in Stanmore. . Criminals are coming together from a really diverse range of backgrounds to do bad things together. Nevertheless he acknowledges Middle Eastern organized crime in the city is not going to go away and more research is needed. Among them is one Australian, with as many as 300,000 made homeless. 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.. EXTRACT: After the sentences were imposed, many people would say things like, 'I'm glad you got those Lebs,' but I found myself trying to explain that I did not 'get those Lebs' at all. 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. 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. 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. The gang assaulted the two girls, by punching and kicking them and, of course, by dragging them across a park by the neck. For thousands of Lebanese Australians residing in Lebanon, the opportunity to return to Australia at any point provides a psychological safety net. The girl was just sixteen years old. Average rent in Sydney. The men in the red van also sexually assaulted them in the same fashion, as well as punching them and kicking them. There was another man, later identified as Y, who took part in the events on this night. The Lebanese community leader says Sydney's legendary Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad (or MEOCS) should "never have been established in the first place - or at least not been given such a terrible title". Average rent in Canberra. 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 trial was quite tense. 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. Bilal Skaf sat throughout the sentencing process looking as if he could not care less about any of it. More discrimination was reported by Middle-Eastern males compared with females on dealings with the police, disrespect, name-calling, and distrust. This went on for some time and eventually Mohammed Skaf used a mobile phone to summon his brother Bilal. The most common crimes involve physical altercations, trespassing, burglary, and damaging public or private property. "The passion is there. The Ryan-inspired OCR had just six crimes. You do what you can.. 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. 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. Trad thinks the problem can be nipped in the bud by changing the way schools deal with Lebanese delinquents. Its just amazing to see how much traction it got, Diana Abbas, director of Impact Lebanon, says. I merely imposed sentences on a number of offenders. 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 generated anything like the public attention these trials drew. new Single expats: 1.773 USD. 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. In this case, only Bilal Skaf gave evidence. 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. 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 . Many of the rapists have never been identified and police fear there were more victims who did not come forward. It seems that the police learned from him that the woman had stabbed his friend as well. The two victims were schoolgirls who were wandering around a shopping centre at Chatswood on 10 August 2000 about nine o'clock at night. I like Middle Eastern food. The last person to plead guilty was a friend of Mohammed Skaf. 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. Facing racism at school and pressure at home, children from Middle Eastern families in Australia are dragged into world of organized crime and ethnic bloodletting, Lebanese youths are searched by Australian police in Sydney. The young girl who was the victim of these rapes could identify Mohammed Skaf, whom she knew well. 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. In other words, each man forced his penis into her mouth and ejaculated. 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. Australian Lebanese families. 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. Our initial goal was 10,000. The devastation in Beirut has profoundly touched Australias 250,000-strong Lebanese community. Finally, the rural areas of Sydney are home to small-time gangs who act as enforcers for the bigger 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. 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. He writes that one suggested if sentences as large as that imposed on Bilal Skaf were allowed to stand rapists would in future murder their victims. And these guys are well armed. 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. Pluto Press, Annandale NSW. Major Joyce Harmer of the Salvation Army was in court as a support person for her and I am sure this helped her greatly when she was giving evidence. She does not have to fight to the death to protect herself from sexual assault. (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. 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 When people have lost their homes and families, you dont think twice. 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. 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. RELATED: Manhunt under way after shooting in Sydney suburb. The 37-year-old Carlingford man and 40-year-old Dundas Valley man have been charged with Dealing in the proceeds of crime - money or property worth $1,000,000 or more, contrary to section 400.3 (1) of the Criminal Code (Cth). 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. Learn how your comment data is processed. Worldwide pandemic lockdowns have only made it easier for Lebanese expats to coordinate. In the third trial, the accused were Bilal Skaf, Mohammed Skaf, Mohammed Ghanem and Mahmoud Chami. Lebanese mafia is a Colloquial term for organized crime groups which origin from Lebanon and Levant. Each girl denied this and gave evidence that Skaf, and those with him in the white van, persistently put pressure on them to engage in oral sex in the van on the way to Greenacre. Evidence was presented to show the layout of the park, the positioning of lights and buildings in the park and evidence was given by the complainant that these events happened at night time. He also clicked his fingers towards my court officers, ordering them to get him water. When later interviewed, Chami claimed that Bilal Skaf told him, 'There's a slut at the Bankstown Trotting Club.' World Each girl was questioned by the Crown prosecutor first and then cross-examined by each of the counsel for the accused. 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. 'I reject this complaint as well,' he writes. Arab Book The existence of criminal activity among these communities is not the issue. In the case of the Lebanese in Australia , specifically Sydney, they took this to another level and built a bad reputation in a number of areas: organised crime, petty crime (robbing and beating up people), questionable business practices (famous for not paying for services rendered or under delivering). National News Agency staff in Beirut found a broken . 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. By 2016, the year of Australia . Lebanon.. I thought she was a particularly brave young woman who refused to give in to any of these suggestions. Surprised by Lebanese officials audaciously asking for Australian money for personal reasons, Bartlem refused to process their requests further. What is still difficult for me to understand is why this serious criminal conspiracy involving so many young men was launched. With all of us getting used to working on Zoom and Slack, its become easier to work with people from different cities.. In the early 1980s, as a young detective I was attached to the Drug Squad at . 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