You cant fathom the despair and destruction., Kassis, an English teacher, is one of thousands of Beiruti residents who have been on the streets, cleaning the shopfronts and homes devastated by Tuesdays blast. A large number of former Lebanese citizens immigrated to several major German cities under political asylum and refugee status. 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. The girls had no idea where they were and were obviously terrified. 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. 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. My understanding was that the relevant agencies would report back to Australia, either through our UN office in Geneva or New York, how they spent that money, and the government would see that as being accountable to the Australian taxpayer, he says. 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 Pursuit of Justice chronicles Finnane's legal career and lifelong campaigning for for social justice, particularly the treatment of those disadvantaged by the legal system. Bilal Skaf, however, elected to give evidence. . One of the dead was Sarkis Abboud, 61 years old, and the second was his friend, Tony Yazbek, two years younger. I thought she was a particularly brave young woman who refused to give in to any of these suggestions. World Of these, 52.5 per cent were males and 47.5 per cent were females. Its just a mess. Abouzeid was in Melbourne at the time of the blast, relying on relatives to send photos of the destruction. Africa 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. 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!' 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. The identity of the four men in the red van has never properly been revealed. I had good reasons for doing this. 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). 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. UAE 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. And you, have you seen the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter in the sky of Barn? However, Bilal Skaf and the other actual rapist had never met her before. A criminal trial commences with the Crown prosecutor calling evidence, after making a short opening address, then each of the accused in turn calls evidence in his case if he wishes to do so. In this case, only Bilal Skaf gave evidence. That is not the law. This surprising evidence was used by the Crown to bolster its case about identification. There was no evidence that any offences were committed because of religious or cultural or racial reasons and, in fact, there had been no mention of religion at any time in the trial. Football I directed that he be known only as 'H', but his identity was not revealed in this first trial. 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. I live in the hyphen between those two identities, Abouzeid says, now en route to Beirut to salvage her home. 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. Home News Video- A crime shocked the Lebanese in Australia.. New facts about the murder of Abboud Yazbek. Malayalam News 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. Instead of taking her to the Harbour Bridge, Mohammed Skaf drove her to a park in Greenacre. The young girl who was the victim of these rapes could identify Mohammed Skaf, whom she knew well. J., Noble, G. Poynting, S. and Tabar, P. (2000) Kebabs, Kids, Cops and Crime. In no sense were the members of this gang representing other Lebanese people. Another curious feature in the trial was Skaf's bold assertion that he was a man of good character. I also prohibited the taking of any photographs of the accused, two of whom were on bail. 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.. ASIAN ORGANISED CRIME IN AUSTRALIA A Discussion Paper by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority February 1995 (return to table of contents) 5. Lebanese organized crime syndicates generally are active . Our initial goal was 10,000. Perhaps the offenders did not believe any of the victims would ever tell the police. The complainant, who had been sexually assaulted by fourteen men something like forty times over four hours, could not identify him. 2. She was reading a book of English literature, when a group of men led by Mohammed Skaf surrounded her and commenced to assault her indecently. politics 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. They could not suggest the girls consented to sexual intercourse because they claimed not to have been there. The following is an edited extract of The Pursuit of Justice by Michael Finnane, QC: All three accused were Australian citizens whose parents had come from Lebanon. At the time, Mohammed Skaf was still a schoolboy and attended the same school as the victim, to whom he was known as 'Sam'. 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. The girls in the car were very concerned at this point, but too scared to get out and run away. The men in the red van also sexually assaulted them in the same fashion, as well as punching them and kicking them. #23. Australia Arab organized crime was introduced in Australia after the mass immigration of Arab people after the Lebanese Civil War in the 1970s to the end of the 1980s. 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. It was because the police had given up fighting back. Culture 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 . Luckily, a man came around the corner, saw her plight and approached her. 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. Lebanese Migration to Australia There have been three main waves of immigration from Lebanon to Australia. 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. . I cant tell what some of the things are in the photos, what they once were. And given the history of government efforts to obtain information on race, Im not even sure its something we should be doing. 26 May . The devastation in Beirut has profoundly touched Australias 250,000-strong Lebanese community. 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. Lebanon.. 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. 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. I cannot say what will happen to these men. 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. 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. It is a crime that assaults human dignity. To my mind, the community deserved to be protected from Bilal Skaf for many years. That group, which became known as the 'Skaf gang' after their leader, Bilal Skaf, went on a 20-day rampage in which four young women were violated in three pack rapes shortly before the 2000 Olympics. Ukraine 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. Indictable offenses are heard in a superior court in the presences of a jury. Sexual intercourse without consent was the principal crime contemplated and committed. 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. Collins, J. The people in the white van went through the city and stopped at a McDonald's in Stanmore. Political overview. Skaf and the other two men made their acquaintance by speaking to them politely in the shopping centre. National News Agency staff in Beirut found a broken . An estimate of the total Lebanese population in Australia, consisting of Lebanese-born and their descendants, is approaching 250,000. The last person to plead guilty was a friend of Mohammed Skaf. But below the surface of this lower-middle class success story is a Middle Eastern ghetto terrorized by members of its community. Those who pleaded guilty, were given lesser sentences than those who pleaded not guilty, because the law provided for this. He acted throughout the trial as someone who wanted to be noticed. Ive been a journalist for 20 years and Ive covered some really tough stories, Im no stranger to these sorts of violent upheavals, but this one feels different, Abouzeid says. 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