Article from the Age August 2003
Bilal Skaf's "freak show" in jail is keeping him in the political spotlight, reports Stephen Gibbs.
Bilal Skaf is not so cocky now. The 21-year-old pack rapist who mocked his victims, smiled through his trial and abused his sentencing judge is learning he has no real power in jail.
He is, however, still the centre of public furore. If Skaf thought he would be left to rot quietly for the next four decades, he was wrong. Public scrutiny of his thoughts and actions have, if anything, increased since he was slotted for at least 40 years of a 55-year sentence. His behaviour in prison has made him the star of his own jailhouse "freak show" - and a useful tool for politicians in the debate over law and order.
Since his conviction, Skaf's life has been threatened by fellow inmates, his mother has tried to smuggle love letters out of Goulburn's "Super Max" jail, and he has drawn obscene cartoons depicting the pack rape of the fiancee who ditched him.
ReplyDeleteOne of the cartoons, published in Sydney's Sun-Herald last week, showed a naked man queueing before the woman, saying to her assailant, "Hurry up, man, there's 50 others waiting". Once among Skaf's strongest supporters, the woman told the paper: "He can rot in hell."
Skaf has also been accused of threatening to blow up "Australians" if all Muslim prisoners in NSW are not released. He supposedly has affiliations with a prison gang called W2K - Willing To Kill - and his associates have threatened to shoot court officers when he next faces a magistrate.
Skaf is the young man who led a gang of young men in multiple pack rapes in Sydney in the weeks before the 2000 Olympics. Skaf summoned his mates by mobile phone for the attacks. In August 2002, he was convicted on 21 counts of aggravated rape, assault and kidnapping.
In the public mind, Skaf was a monster long before he was known by either his name or his face. The appalling nature of his crimes, his record 40-year minimum sentence and the accompanying remarks by Judge Michael Finnane ensured that.
"What this trial showed was that he was the leader of the pack, a liar, a bully, a coward, callous and mean," Finnane found. "He is, in truth, a menace to any civilised society."
Skaf's attitude was summed up by his retort to Finnane. "I'm innocent," he shouted. "I remain (sic) my innocence until the day I die . . ."
"The worst of all offenders", as Finnane described Skaf, had throughout his trial shown no remorse and "conducted himself as if the proceedings were a joke".
The Crown Prosecutor at his trials, Margaret Cunneen, said Skaf's crimes had left an indelible stain on the psyche of the citizens of NSW. The Premier, Bob Carr, said Skaf's 55-year term was "the sort of sentence the community expects", while Opposition Leader John Brogden said he hoped Skaf would rot in jail.
Eleven months later, Skaf is still a useful political tool. His presence was felt during the March 22 NSW election campaign and he mentioned in any debate about sentencing and prisons.
If Skaf does not seem to comprehend the gravity of his crimes, he must be bewildered that he is so often still in the news. The Opposition's acting justice spokesman, John Ryan, claims the Government uses the Super Max jail in general, and Skaf in particular, as a "freak show" to prove it is tough on crime.
He has attacked the Corrective Services Commissioner, Ron Woodham, over the department's leaking of stories and pictures about prisoners such as Skaf, backpacker killer Ivan Milat and political assassin Phuong Ngo. The Government defends Woodham, saying that Skaf's continuing criminal behaviour in jail is a matter of genuine public interest. Woodham says of Skaf that Finnane "summed him up to a tee".
The Age has seen a letter in which Skaf says he is the leader of a prison gang and identifies other inmate members' positions. "If you're considering on being a luitanent (sic) please don't hesitate to ask," he wrote. "I have a vacant place, 'cause I sacked (name deleted)'."
Skaf still has not expressed remorse and shows no signs of settling down in jail. "He hasn't changed despite our best efforts," Woodham says.
As recently as last week, Skaf warned Super Max officers to be careful when they finished work, as one of them could get shot. "This has become yet another criminal inquiry into his threatening behaviour towards staff who manage him," Woodham says.
During his trial, Skaf's barrister could not submit evidence that his client had shown any contrition because Skaf insisted no psychological reports or character references be tendered.
Throughout the hearing Skaf remained unnamed, until a suppression order was lifted and his face was on the front page of newspapers on September 7 last year. He has rarely been out of the news since. Within a month of his sentencing, rumours were circulating that he had had his penis lopped, been raped in jail, taken to hospital and transferred interstate.
A week after he was named, Skaf was back on the front page when his mother, Baria, was barred from visiting all NSW jails after being caught on security video trying to smuggle letters her son had written to his fiancee.
The letters contained sketches of Skaf's cell and exercise yard and stills from that surveillance appeared in Sydney's Sun-Herald.
At the same time, it was revealed Skaf had been transferred to Super Max because three fellow inmates at Long Bay were said to be planning to take blood from an HIV-positive prisoner and inject it into Skaf.
Soon after, the then Privacy Commissioner, Chris Puplick, was warning that the Skaf family could be eligible for up to $40,000 compensation for breach of privacy. This prompted Carr to change the law. Carr introduced the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Amendment (Prison) Bill 2002, stopping prisoners such as Skaf, their family or friends receiving payment for breaches of privacy laws.
Brogden told reporters: "The reality is I have no sympathy for that family. Their son's in jail for a long time for a horrific crime and she shouldn't be breaking the rules either."
Skaf's then-fiancee said: "Tell me anyone who gives a damn about whether he writes me love poetry. Who cares?"
In late September, Skaf's father, Mustapha, was accused of offering prison officers $100 to talk to his son on a phone. Cut off from his family and with his estranged fiancee now regretting ever supporting him, Skaf was on his own.
Channel Ten reporter Paul Mullins is the only journalist to have spoken to Skaf since his sentence. "When I saw him in Super Max in December he'd only been there a couple of months and he looked like a frightened little boy," Mullins said.
"His eyes were red. He'd obviously been crying and he was complaining. He said, 'I've been getting a lot of therapy from the guys in here. They've been giving me a hard time.'
"He was upset that they had banned his mother from visiting him. I said to him, 'What is the worst part of being in the Super Max?' and he said it was the segregation, being isolated from everybody."
By New Year, Skaf was on suicide watch after officers found six sleeping pills and a broken mirror in his cell when he attempted to set fire to his quarters.
In March, he was charged with being the author of a threatening letter addressed to Woodham. The letter was found in an internal prison mailbox. Laced with a white powder, the letter said: "Don't take this as a threat but if all Muslims aren't released by January 2003 Australia and citizens will be in danger of bombing."
While he awaited a court appearance over the letter, prison guards found five drawings in Skaf's cell depicting scenes including the pack rape of his former fiancee.
Woodham said the pictures showed Skaf was in the right place. "I believe the drawings depict the way he thinks," he said. "It tells you the way he thinks about women. He's learnt nothing since his trial and conviction. He hasn't shown any remorse at all." Neither has he sought psychiatric help.
The show rolled on as it was revealed on Tuesday that a man claiming to be from W2K called Goulburn courthouse and threatened to shoot staff if Skaf was not released.
The threat prompted the Attorney-General, Bob Debus, to announce that Skaf would not appear as scheduled at Goulburn Court on September 12 for a hearing into the threatening letter charge.
Wherever that hearing is held, the presiding magistrate will have some discretion on whether reporters will be allowed to attend. If nothing else, you can bet the decision will be that they can.
Skaf 'could be killed' in prison
ReplyDeleteBy Amy Fallon
CONVICTED gang rapist Bilal Skaf has no friends in jail and is at risk of being killed by other prisoners, a Sydney court has been told.
Skaf and an associate, who can be referred to only as AA, were convicted in the NSW Supreme Court in April over the August 2000 pack rape of a 16-year-old girl in Greenacre's Gosling Park, in Sydney's west.
During the pair's sentencing submissions today, Skaf's lawyer, Peter Zahra SC asked acting Justice Jane Mathews to take into account that his client, already serving a 28-year sentence for other offences, was approaching nearly six years in custody.
He said Skaf, who has been convicted twice of the Gosling Park attack, had "no friends" in prison and faced "onerous" and "very dangerous" conditions.
"There are prisoners that want to kill him - and they are not from any particular ethnic group," Mr Zahra said.
AA's lawyer Matthew Johnston said his 22-year-old client should have the opportunity to participate in educational programs inside jail, which would "certainly go to his prospects of rehabilitation".
Acting Justice Mathews said she would sentence the pair within the next two weeks, but did not fix a date.
Skaf, now 24, was convicted in 2002 on two counts of aggravated sexual intercourse without consent in company, while AA was found guilty of being an accessary before the fact.
They were among up to 14 men allegedly involved in the attack.
Skaf made NSW legal history when he was sentenced to a record 55 years in jail for leading a string of vicious gang rapes - including the Gosling Park attack - in 2000.
But the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal in 2004 quashed Skaf and AA's convictions over the Gosling Park attack and ordered a retrial after it was revealed that, during the trial, two jurors conducted their own investigations at the scene of the rape.
Skaf remained behind bars while awaiting retrial, with his sentence for other sex offences having been reduced to a maximum 28 years on appeal.
AA's overturned conviction and a subsequent appeal resulted in his jail term for the same series of attacks being reduced from 32 to 19 years.