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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 four men in this other car all raped this unfortunate young girl, who was then hosed down until she was soaking wet and forced out of the car that she was in near the Catholic Club at Lidcombe. The two victims were schoolgirls who were wandering around a shopping centre at Chatswood on 10 August 2000 about nine o'clock at night. But with drive-by shootings, the nature of criminality in Sydney has changed. Thus, the Crown Prosecutor and the counsel for Hajeid and Ghanem joined forces to attack Bilal Skaf. 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. from Lebanese organized crime syndicates generally are active . I directed that he be known only as 'H', but his identity was not revealed in this first trial. The ultra-rich lost 10% of their wealth in 2022, study finds, Devin Booker delights against the Hornets, Russian internet celebrity posts 700-year-old holy tree naked! That is not the law. However, when the van finally stopped, it was at a park in Greenacre. The second trial had two accused only, Bilal Skaf and Mohammed Skaf, his younger brother. trot 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. Skaf used condoms and threw them on the ground. There was no application that I should do otherwise. Ghanem's convictions for his participation in the attacks that were the subject of the first trial, however, were confirmed. 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. At no point, however, did he identify the men in the red van. I do not believe he will ever acknowledge the seriousness of what he did. They were classified as a Turk due to Lebanon being a province of the Ottoman Empire at that time. 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. Average rent in Melbourne. Crimes under Lebanese laws may not be considered offences in Australia. The criminal justice system judged and punished the perpetrators. Melbourne experiences a moderate crime rate and is generally considered a safe city for living and travelling. #23. When people have lost their homes and families, you dont think twice. 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. 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. For most of his career, Finnane was not well known outside legal circles but that changed rapidly and forever when he presided over the Skaf rape trials. Five computers were stolen along with the servers, Lebanese TV channel LBCI reported. 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. In the witness box, she clutched a small doll in her hands and gave firm and clear evidence. Instead of taking her to the Harbour Bridge, Mohammed Skaf drove her to a park in Greenacre. 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. 26 May . A GANG war over drug turf that has been simmering for two decades has erupted into a series of public shootings that has turned Fairfield in western Sydney into Australia's most dangerous suburb. Killing and shooting and illegal activity have become part of daily life. Australian society and government were mostly doing this until Bowen's speech. What we know about the Beirut explosion video explainer, caused by the unsafe storage of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, anti-government protests in Lebanon in October 2019, president Emmanuel Macron toured the devastated scenes. Single expats: 1.773 USD. The complainants clearly identified Skaf, whose counsel suggested to each complainant that she had consented to having sexual intercourse with him. Although Lebanese are to be found throughout Australia . There were others who have never been brought to trial. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. sport However, although these cases attracted some media attention while the trials were proceeding, they passed largely with little comment.'. Political news But the central bank, Banque du Liban, led by former Merrill Lynch banker Riad Salameh . This large group of men got out of this van. If I opened up my lunchbox and pulled out a Lebanese roll, I would get hassled. newspaper Stars: Travis Fimmel, Jemmason Power, Talijah Blackman-Corowa, Eden Cassady Votes: 2,921 3. Learn how your comment data is processed. Frank Hakim, who emigrated to Australia at the age of 20 or so, was the first prominent Lebanese criminal. The protests inspired Lebanese abroad to get involved, prompting would-be activists to connect virtually and volunteer. It seemed clear to me that these men were sending out a message to the community in Sydney. 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. She was also raped vaginally by another man who also forced oral sex on her. 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. 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. Meanwhile Bilal Skaf and others with him got into the van in which they had come to the park and drove around to the telephone box where one of them produced a gun and ordered her to get inside. Lebanon was still politically dysfunctional and rivalries had left it without a president for most of 2016. Subsequent migration was steady until an influx occurred surrounding the Arab . They believed they would be driven around Chatswood, have a few puffs of marijuana and would then go home. Its just a mess. Abouzeid was in Melbourne at the time of the blast, relying on relatives to send photos of the destruction. 'One thing was obvious to me - Bilal Skaf wanted the victims to talk about what happened, to pass on their terror. 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. Each girl was questioned by the Crown prosecutor first and then cross-examined by each of the counsel for the accused. Another curious feature in the trial was Skaf's bold assertion that he was a man of good character. 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". Id punch any Aussie kid who even looked at me., (MORE:Circle Sentencing: Alternative Justice in Australia). 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. technology However, the victims' descriptions of the other men who attacked them were quite vague, as could be expected. 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. That much was confirmed by Lieutenant Colonel Rony Ghanem of Lebanons Internal Security Force. Manorama Online It was about 9pm at this stage. [6] These criminal organizations are mostly based around extended criminal clans. They could not suggest the girls consented to sexual intercourse because they claimed not to have been there. Why did those who joined him, become involved? What we found was that in a matter of weeks they were excelling the other kids in school. However, the website of the Voice of Lebanon radio station in Melbourne, mentioned important information, accompanied by two pictures of the dead, and a summary of the information that the offender was a friend of the assassinated Tony Yazbek and she has a 10-year-old daughter, who lives with her mothers grandmother, and that the late Sarkis Abboud was a victim of his presence with his friend. At that time, according to the radio. 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. 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. The sheer scale of it, and that it sounds like it was completely avoidable. While Lebanese settled all over Australia, the majority have consistently settled in NSW and particularly in Sydney. For Melbourne-born Alia Melki, that urge to help hit her as immediately as the blast itself. 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.. Factors such as unemployment, education, socio-economic disadvantage and lack of access to services have more bearing than ethnicity on crime rates. Diaspora aid to Lebanon is meticulously processed to avoid funds falling into the hands of government officials and intermediaries accused of corruption, with support being sent directly to vetted NGOs, such as the Lebanese Red Cross. Under a large number of refugees, there were also several extended clans that already in Lebanon were deeply entrenched in organized crime. The closest thing to non-white allies we have is . What is still difficult for me to understand is why this serious criminal conspiracy involving so many young men was launched. Unidentified thieves broke into the headquarters of Lebanon's state news agency and stole a server containing its photo archive, officials say. Ukraine This meant that the Crown could seek my consent to cross-examine him to show that he was a man of bad character. At the end of the Crown case, the case against Skaf looked strong, but the case against Ghanem and Hajeid looked weak because of the identification problems. The main activities of Arab gangs in Australia are narcotics and weapons trafficking, extortion, prostitution, car theft and money laundering. 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. Worldwide pandemic lockdowns have only made it easier for Lebanese expats to coordinate. I was always hopeful that the people I sentenced in other cases might see the point of rehabilitation and, undoubtedly, some of them did. Finally, the rural areas of Sydney are home to small-time gangs who act as enforcers for the bigger gangs in the city. 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. The girl was just sixteen years old. The Australian Embassy in Beirut, opened in 1967, was the third Australian Embassy to be established in the Middle East. Restaurateurs in Bankstown pay up to $50,000 a year in protection money or risk having their premises firebombed, while Shia and Sunni Muslims exchange invectives and blows on the streets. Result: gun crime in western Sydney and northern Melbourne often involves Lebanese Australians, as we saw with the murder last month of Hamad Assaad, himself a suspected hitman. . Yet, the new gangland war fails to capture the imagination. [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. economy Arab world But these days its worse. The damage is extensive, like all the other apartments in the area. She was able to identify Bilal Skaf because he made a point of shoving his face close to hers and saying, 'I'm Sam's brother, Sam.'. He and the others who accompanied him then dragged the unfortunate girl to the middle of the park where they pulled of her clothes and proceeded to run their hands over her body. As ' H ', but his identity was not revealed in this first.! Crimes under Lebanese laws may not be considered offences in Australia are narcotics and trafficking..., when the van finally stopped, it was at a park in Greenacre go home Lebanese. 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