55-year rape sentence shocks legal experts

A 55-YEAR prison sentence handed down to the ringleader of a gang of young Lebanese men who raped four women in western Sydney has shocked lawyers.

Legal experts say they are astonished at the length of time the 20-year-old rapist, who was ordered to serve a minimum of 40 years, will spend behind bars.

"The sentence is as shocking as the crime," said University of Sydney criminologist Professor Mark Findlay.

John North, an executive member of the Law Council of Australia, said he had never seen such a long sentence in a rape case and worried it could lead to an escalation of sentences for other crimes.

"It would be very difficult to tell the parents of girls who are murdered that a 20-year sentence was sufficient if 40-year sentences are being handed down where people are not murdered," North said.

As the sentence was read out yesterday by Sydney District Court judge Michael Finnane, the rapist, a paint sprayer convicted of 21 charges relating to three different gang rapes, screamed an obscenity and proclaimed his innocence.

His mother fainted in the public gallery and other family members screamed in disbelief before being led out of the courtroom.

Prosecutors said the man used a mobile phone to call friends to rape four women in three separate attacks in August 2000. A gun was held to the heads of two victims and racial slurs were hurled at them.

"What the trial showed was that he was the leader of the pack a liar, a bully, a coward, callous and mean," Finnane said of the man. "He is, in truth, a menace to any civilised society."

Earlier this year, anti-Muslim sentiment emerged in the city of four million following press reports of the gang rape defendants charged in the gang rapes laughing and chatting in court without remorse during their trials.

Kuranda Seyit, a spokesman for the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, said Muslim women were often verbally abused their headscarves making them easy to identify.

About 300,000 Muslims live in Australia, many of them emigrating to Sydney from trouble-spots in the Middle East.

The only other serious outbreak of anti-Islamic feeling followed the September 11 attacks when Muslims were abused and some mosques set on fire.

But while lawyers agonised over the sentence, Muslims were among many commentators praising it.

The president of the Australian Lebanese Association, Philip Rizk, said the community was happy with the sentence.

"If you commit a crime beyond imaginable human behaviour, you should be put away and the key thrown away," he told Sydney tabloid The Daily Telegraph.