The Sydney gang rapes were a series of gang rape attacks committed by a group of up to fourteen Lebanese Australian youths led by Bilal Skaf against Australian women and teenage girls, as young as 14, in Sydney Australia in 2000. The crimes, described as ethnically motivated hate crimes by officials and commentators,[1][2][3] were covered extensively by the news media, and prompted the passing of new laws. The nine men convicted of the gang rapes were sentenced to a total of more than 240 years in jail. According to court transcripts Judge Michael Finnane described the rapes as events that “you hear about or read about only in the context of wartime atrocities”.
* Attackers offered a ride and a portion of cannabis to two teenage girls aged 17 and 18. The women were taken by the attackers to Northcote Park, Greenacre where more collaborators were waiting. The women were then forced to fellate eight males.
* A 16-year-old girl was brought to Gosling Park, Greenacre by someone whom she believed was her friend, 17-year-old Mohammed Skaf. At the park she was raped by Mohammed’s brother Bilal Skaf and one other man, with twelve other men present who she said were “standing around, laughing and talking in their own language”.[6] The second man held a gun to her head and kicked her in the stomach before she was able to escape.
* Another woman was approached by attackers at the Bankstown railway station, who proposed she join them in smoking some cannabis at another location. She agreed and went with them; however she was taken to three separate locations by the men and raped 25 times by a total of fourteen men in an ordeal that lasted six hours. After the attacks the woman was hosed down with a fire hose. The woman, who was known during the trial as ‘C’ to protect her identity, later told her story to 60 Minutes. She told of how the attackers called her an “Aussie Pig”, asked her if “Leb cock tasted better than Aussie cock” and explained to her that she would now be raped “Leb-style”.
* Two girls, both 16, were taken by the attackers from Beverly Hills railway station to a house in another suburb, where three men repeatedly raped them over a period of five hours. One of the victims was told that “You deserve it because you’re an Australian”.
* The attackers used SMS and mobile phones to orchestrate the attack and to phone ahead to other attackers to co-ordinate transport of rape gang members to the locations where women were being held. Authorities later released some of this material, recovered from the rapists’ mobile phones
The attackers texted such messages as “When you are feeling down… bash a Christian or Catholic and lift up”.[33] and “I’ve got a slut with me bro, come to Punchbowl”.
