Author: Natasha Wallace
Publication: The Sydney Morning
Herald
Date: March 2, 2004
URL: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/01/1078117369680.html
Three Pakistani gang rapists who
are facing life in jail yesterday begged a judge to be pardoned, citing
cultural differences that led to the brutal attack, immaturity on their
part and hardship within their families if they were imprisoned.
But Supreme Court Justice Brian
Sully said "culture or no culture", a strong message needed to be sent
to other young men that such horrific sex crimes against women will not
be tolerated in modern society.
Andrew Haesler, for one of the defendants,
known as MMK, 17, said his client was immature and had lived in Australia
for two years without the "restrictive boundaries" in his home country.
But Justice Sully said the crime
could not be passed off as a "youthful indiscretion that has somehow gone
wrong".
"Sixteen or not, what he did is
absolutely repellent behaviour, and it's adult-type behaviour," he said.
"It has to be established once and for all that culture or no culture,
wherever he came from, however old you are, this cannot be tolerated in
modern society."
Five males, four of whom are brothers,
were found guilty last year of nine counts of aggravated sexual assault
in company - which carries a maximum life sentence - on two girls, aged
16 and 17, at the brothers' Ashfield family home on July 28, 2002.
The girls were repeatedly raped,
threatened with knives and bullets and one was told the other had been
killed because she had resisted her attackers. None of the men can be named
because the younger brothers, MMK and MRK, 18, were minors at the time.
Another man, known as RS, is 25.
Two of the men, known as MSK, 25,
and MAK, 23, sobbed openly in court, maintaining their innocence and begging
for "another chance".
The brothers are representing themselves
because they believe an anti-Muslim conspiracy has prevented a fair hearing.
Their father, a practising doctor, told the court they should be pardoned
because they "did not know the culture of this country".
Justice Sully said the victims'
impact statements had greatly affected him: "I have not heard . . . anything
like it . . . something proper needs to be done to get the message out
to the adolescents and teenagers."
The men are the first to be convicted
of the new offence of aggravated sexual assault in company, which carries
a maximum life penalty.
They will be sentenced on March
12.
