Latest news with #NSWPolice
News.com.au
13 hours ago
- News.com.au
Why the media is unable to picture or name three of the four teenage males accused of gang raping a girl in southwest Sydney
When news broke on Wednesday that four teenagers had been charged following an alleged six hour gang-rape of a 17-year-old girl in western Sydney late last year, social media lit up with two questions: who on earth were these boys and why were their identities being protected by media and shielded from the public? So far we know that police claim on December 15, a 16-year-old boy, unknown to the girl, approached her in a shopping centre car park in Liverpool. The girl reluctantly let him in her car to 'sit and chat' before he allegedly attacked her. According to NSW police, the 16-year-old filmed certain parts of the incident which he broadcast on a video call to his mates. She then drove him to Wheat park, believing it to be her best chance of him leaving. But once there, two other teens got in. A fourth man also joined who took control of the car, and police claim that the group then took turns raping the girl, sometimes two at once. When they finally left, at around 11.30pm, the 'distraught' girl called a friend who took her to Liverpool police station. Five days later on December 20, the 14 and 16-year-old boys were charged with multiple offenses and this week, an 18-year-old and 19-year-old were also arrested and charged. So far, Adam Abdul-Hamid, the 19-year-old, is the only accused who has been named by the media. And all four co-accused have yet to have their day in court and are entitled to the presumption of innocence. The case, however, highlights an issue that many readers often find confounding: regardless of any eventual verdict, it is more likely than not that we will never be able to report the other three boys' names to you. This is because in New South Wales, the Children (Criminal Proceedings) Act 1987 prohibits the publication or broadcasting of the names of people under 18 involved in criminal proceedings. This is to protect their long term reputation from the potential stigma associated with criminal charges, and to aid in their re-entry into society and rehabilitation in the event of a guilty verdict. The idea is that people under 18 deserve a second chance and should not have their reputations permanently damaged due to mistakes made in 'childhood'. And for petty, non-violent crimes, this may make sense. But when it comes to allegations of gang-rape, is the law keeping up with community expectations? And is the principle of open-justice being served? Theoretically, in NSW a sentencing judge can make an order to remove the suppression gag on their names at this point of sentencing, but this almost never happens. But at what price? I recently interviewed a young woman in Sydney who was sexually assaulted by a teenage boy. She wasn't alone. In total he was charged with sexually assaulting up to six teen girls. He was convicted of a number of those offenses but since they all happened while he was under 18, his name cannot be published in relation to those convictions. Worse still, once he turned 18, he was charged again with another offense, but this time was found not guilty due to a hung jury. To Google his name now, you would conclude he has no criminal record as the one and only result suggests that he was charged but found not guilty of the adult offense. It's a result which could easily mislead any young woman who now crosses paths with him. Another perverse outcome of this law is that journalists often have to suppress critical information in gang-rape cases of how boys or men are linked. While I make no comment about the case announced yesterday, it's not uncommon, for example, in gang-rape cases for the accused to be linked through family, a sporting team, or some other club or association. However if one or more of the alleged offenders are under 18, journalists must suppress not only their name, but also their identity and this will often extend to other personal information, including their family, school, sporting teams and so on. The result is that journalists are sometimes forced to leave out critical information which helps give context and can inform violence prevention research - including how the teen boys know each other. Most perverse of all though is how this law can impact complainants and victims. Rightly or wrongly, they are left with the perception that the accused's right to privacy and reputation is more important than their own and , but at times this law can directly silence victims. I'll never forget meeting a young woman who was raped at age five by her 17-year-old brother. He was found guilty and served jail time. She wanted to reveal her name and tell her story as part of her healing. But because they share a surname, and his identity is automatically suppressed due to his age at the time of the offending, her identity is forcibly kept secret by the law too, meaning she cannot ever share her name and full story, absent a specialised court exemption. These are just some of the perverse outcomes of this law aimed at protecting young people. But finally, it's worth remembering that aside from upholding the principles of open-justice, there are other public interest and public safety arguments for naming convicted offenders. Specifically, when media do publish the names of men and women who have been charged with, or found guilty of sexual violence, this can empower other victims in the community to come forward and report: both in general and specifically in relation to that named offender. The reason for this is that many victims of sexual assault choose not to report at first, especially if they believe they are 'the only one'. Isolation, shame, self-blame, fear of not being believed, and fear of reprisals are just some of the reasons many stay silent. But when a victim learns their offender has been charged with another offense this can empower them to take steps to report: not only is there strength and safety in numbers, but survivors also instinctively understand that an offender who harms two people is capable of harming many more. It takes enormous strength and courage to report a sexual crime. I hope as a community we know how to stand with those who do.
The Age
14 hours ago
- The Age
Gangster has survived four murder plots: How Samimjan Azari became Sydney's most marked man
For almost a decade, Samimjan Azari has quietly climbed the ranks of the Alameddine crime clan. Once a gun and drug runner for the network, Azari spent years as a loyal cog in the machine of the sprawling criminal organisation, entrenching himself in Alameddine operations while flying largely under the radar of police as he gradually cemented his standing as a senior member. Around him, senior figures and associates have been jailed or fled overseas, paving the way for his ascent from a relative unknown in Sydney's underworld to the city's most marked man, who this week survived the fourth attempt on his life this year. Three-and-a-half years in prison for selling firearms and cocaine to undercover counter-terror police did little to stunt his rise, which continued after he was paroled in 2020. Azari was arrested alongside Bilal Alameddine after a two-month sting, during which they sold Desert Eagle and Smith & Wesson handguns and more than $100,000 worth of cocaine to officers. Deliberately targeted by police because of his family history and known connection to the Alameddine family, Azari was handed a seven-year sentence with a non-parole period of 3½ years. Three years earlier, Azari's older brother, Omarjan, was jailed for his role in an Islamic State plot to behead Australians and broadcast their killings online. In 2015, Bilal Alameddine tried to leave Australia to join Islamic State terrorists in the Middle East as a 16-year-old. Months later, a relative sharing his notorious surname, Talal Alameddine, supplied the gun used by a radicalised teenager in the murder of police accountant Curtis Cheng outside NSW Police headquarters. Even with his jailing and connections to high-profile associates, Azari has remained a relative unknown in the gangland wars that have plagued Sydney in recent years as conflicts between rival organised crime networks claimed high-profile victims. But over the past six months, that anonymity has dissolved as he found himself at the centre of an imploding war within the broader Alameddine network that has spilt onto Sydney's streets and triggered plots to assassinate him. On Monday, Azari survived the third attempt on his life in three weeks when two masked gunmen stormed a Turkish restaurant in Auburn, shooting him in the arm and shoulder, and hitting an innocent restaurant employee – a 47-year-old mother – twice in the torso. A 25-year-old associate of Azari's, acting as his bodyguard, was shot in the face – the third companion travelling with him to have been killed or seriously injured in attempts on his life in the past month. Another man with the pair fled into a back room of the restaurant as Azari fought off one of his attackers with a chair. Weeks before, on May 25, another of Azari's associates, Dawood Zakaria, was fatally shot in the head by assailants who opened fire on a Toyota HiLux in which they were travelling. Who has carried out the failed assassinations on Azari remains a major focus for detectives, with no gunmen so far arrested, but investigators believe the orders have come from within Azari's own network after an internal conflict 'imploded'. 'Obviously, they're a violent organisation, and they're happy to target people that are outside their organisation or those, if necessary, from within their own organisation,' acting Police Commissioner Peter Thurtell said in the hours after Monday's shooting. Little over a year ago, NSW Police triumphantly declared it had 'eradicated' the Alameddine network, arresting what senior figures were left in Australia after several of the group's bosses, including kingpin Rafat Alameddine, fled the country for the safety of Lebanon in November 2022. Since then, Rafat, has been living abroad as a free man, wanted alongside fellow gangland figure John Ray Bayssari over an alleged criminal conspiracy to murder their underworld enemy Ibrahem Hamze during the peak of a war between the Alameddine and Hamzy clans for control of Sydney's lucrative drug trade in August 2021. That war, between the Alameddine and Hamzy clans, has been linked to 20 organised crime killings since 2020, police allege. In December 2023, Alameddine's second-in-command at the time and Zakaria's brother, Masood Zakaria, was charged over the conspiracy to kill Hamze after he was deported from Turkey, where he was living after leaving Australia aboard a fishing boat two years earlier. Despite what police hailed as a major victory, the Alameddine network has retained its presence as one of Sydney's most influential organised crime groups. And what success authorities did have in dismantling the network's Australian operations, has been, in part, undone by the fallout since. Police sources, who sought anonymity to speak freely about investigations linked to the Alameddine conflict, said the network has suffered from a lack of leadership in recent years, resulting in an escalating feud between rival factions that has led to the recent spike in violence, including the attempts on Azari's life. That lack of authority within the network, sources said, has left trigger-happy lower-ranking members free to call the shots with little regard for the consequences in a conflict that can't be linked to one particular incident but rather a series of minor issues within the broader network. The lack of senior leadership has also brought with it a departure from the meticulously planned and executed operations that have become synonymous with gangland killings of recent years. In its place, botched assassinations carried out by what police believe are inexperienced and incompetent hired killers chasing a lucrative contract. A suspected team of hitmen, the so-called 'Afghani crew', is believed to have been recruited into the internal conflict as contract killers. Among the warring factions, the KVT, a street gang made up of predominantly Fijian members and long enlisted as muscle for the Alameddines, has fallen out with the network. But the KVT is itself divided. A number of alleged members remain linked to Azari and other senior members of the Alameddine network who have led the organisation's attempted infiltration of Sydney's booming illicit tobacco trade. In January, several men linked to the Alameddine network and the KVT gang allegedly broke into a Condell Park storage unit and detained three men in an attempted robbery of millions of dollars worth of illicit tobacco. The men were allegedly tied up, and one had a toe severed. Far from a struggle between senior figures for control of what remains of the Alameddine empire, parts of the conflict, believed to centre on a series of minor grievances, stoop as low as the network's street-level operations. Once feared and protected by loyal followers, those at the top of the Alameddine organisation have been placed in the firing line by the conflict. The man police allege has climbed the ranks to head the network in Australia, Ali Elmoubayed, has himself received death threats and has been forced to flee the crime clan's long-time home suburb because of concerns for his safety. A week ago, Elmoubayed, a former bodyguard to Rafat Alameddine, inadvertently escaped a drive-by shooting at his Merrylands home by minutes. Elmoubayed was en route to Parramatta Local Court to ask a magistrate to let him relocate his young family when the bullets were fired. Four days earlier, a car outside the Earl Street home was firebombed. It is not clear whether the alleged shooters, who were arrested less than an hour after the incident, knew the house was empty and fired the shots as a warning, or if the attack was a genuine attempt on the gangland figure's life. Hours later, Elmoubayed's bail conditions were varied, allowing him to move to an inner-city high-rise apartment building with security features his lawyers argued would protect him and his family from future attacks. Loading His relocation was the latest indication of an emerging pattern in the conflict within the Alameddine network, with several of the crime clan's members and associates taking measures to alter their movements and make themselves less predictable for would-be assassins. A week earlier, Alameddine associate Ali Younes, widely known by his rap moniker, Ay Huncho, successfully argued for a change to his bail conditions so he could report to police over the phone rather than in person, fearing he would be targeted. Like Younes, the routines of several gangland figures have put them in the firing line of would-be assassins flying in the face of law enforcement as their stalking becomes more brazen. Police believe in two of the four attempts on Azar's life, gunmen followed him from a public place. On Monday, Azari was followed from a police station, which he left an hour before he was cornered inside the Auburn restaurant. Despite the best efforts of police to keep Azari safe, death threats still loom over him. After the Granville shooting, police warned there could be further attempts on Azari's life and raised concerns of retaliation as the conflict escalated. There would be further bloodshed on Sydney's streets because of Azari's standing in the Alameddine network, they said. Within weeks, police were proven right. In the days before Monday's shooting, and after another foiled attempt on his life in Rozelle on Friday, detectives repeatedly warned Azari of the risks posed to him should he remain on Sydney's streets. 'He was made aware of threats against his life,' Detective Superintendent Jason Box said on Tuesday. 'He acknowledged those threats against his life, to an extent, he was reasonably dismissive of what we had to say, and he's obviously continued his movements in the public area with not a great deal of concern.' This week, detectives have issued further warnings. 'I'm hoping that this individual reassesses his movements,' Box said. 'I'm hoping that he's not accessible. I'm hoping that he does take the advice that we've given and that it does not present an opportunity like we've seen yesterday.' But with little indication the warnings will be heeded, and gunmen inching closer to their goal, the warnings, like Azari's luck, may be wearing thin. 'We've given him all the information that we can … to assist him and protect himself,' Box said. 'What he chooses to do with that information is a matter for him.'
Sydney Morning Herald
14 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Gangster has survived four murder plots: How Samimjan Azari became Sydney's most marked man
For almost a decade, Samimjan Azari has quietly climbed the ranks of the Alameddine crime clan. Once a gun and drug runner for the network, Azari spent years as a loyal cog in the machine of the sprawling criminal organisation, entrenching himself in Alameddine operations while flying largely under the radar of police as he gradually cemented his standing as a senior member. Around him, senior figures and associates have been jailed or fled overseas, paving the way for his ascent from a relative unknown in Sydney's underworld to the city's most marked man, who this week survived the fourth attempt on his life this year. Three-and-a-half years in prison for selling firearms and cocaine to undercover counter-terror police did little to stunt his rise, which continued after he was paroled in 2020. Azari was arrested alongside Bilal Alameddine after a two-month sting, during which they sold Desert Eagle and Smith & Wesson handguns and more than $100,000 worth of cocaine to officers. Deliberately targeted by police because of his family history and known connection to the Alameddine family, Azari was handed a seven-year sentence with a non-parole period of 3½ years. Three years earlier, Azari's older brother, Omarjan, was jailed for his role in an Islamic State plot to behead Australians and broadcast their killings online. In 2015, Bilal Alameddine tried to leave Australia to join Islamic State terrorists in the Middle East as a 16-year-old. Months later, a relative sharing his notorious surname, Talal Alameddine, supplied the gun used by a radicalised teenager in the murder of police accountant Curtis Cheng outside NSW Police headquarters. Even with his jailing and connections to high-profile associates, Azari has remained a relative unknown in the gangland wars that have plagued Sydney in recent years as conflicts between rival organised crime networks claimed high-profile victims. But over the past six months, that anonymity has dissolved as he found himself at the centre of an imploding war within the broader Alameddine network that has spilt onto Sydney's streets and triggered plots to assassinate him. On Monday, Azari survived the third attempt on his life in three weeks when two masked gunmen stormed a Turkish restaurant in Auburn, shooting him in the arm and shoulder, and hitting an innocent restaurant employee – a 47-year-old mother – twice in the torso. A 25-year-old associate of Azari's, acting as his bodyguard, was shot in the face – the third companion travelling with him to have been killed or seriously injured in attempts on his life in the past month. Another man with the pair fled into a back room of the restaurant as Azari fought off one of his attackers with a chair. Weeks before, on May 25, another of Azari's associates, Dawood Zakaria, was fatally shot in the head by assailants who opened fire on a Toyota HiLux in which they were travelling. Who has carried out the failed assassinations on Azari remains a major focus for detectives, with no gunmen so far arrested, but investigators believe the orders have come from within Azari's own network after an internal conflict 'imploded'. 'Obviously, they're a violent organisation, and they're happy to target people that are outside their organisation or those, if necessary, from within their own organisation,' acting Police Commissioner Peter Thurtell said in the hours after Monday's shooting. Little over a year ago, NSW Police triumphantly declared it had 'eradicated' the Alameddine network, arresting what senior figures were left in Australia after several of the group's bosses, including kingpin Rafat Alameddine, fled the country for the safety of Lebanon in November 2022. Since then, Rafat, has been living abroad as a free man, wanted alongside fellow gangland figure John Ray Bayssari over an alleged criminal conspiracy to murder their underworld enemy Ibrahem Hamze during the peak of a war between the Alameddine and Hamzy clans for control of Sydney's lucrative drug trade in August 2021. That war, between the Alameddine and Hamzy clans, has been linked to 20 organised crime killings since 2020, police allege. In December 2023, Alameddine's second-in-command at the time and Zakaria's brother, Masood Zakaria, was charged over the conspiracy to kill Hamze after he was deported from Turkey, where he was living after leaving Australia aboard a fishing boat two years earlier. Despite what police hailed as a major victory, the Alameddine network has retained its presence as one of Sydney's most influential organised crime groups. And what success authorities did have in dismantling the network's Australian operations, has been, in part, undone by the fallout since. Police sources, who sought anonymity to speak freely about investigations linked to the Alameddine conflict, said the network has suffered from a lack of leadership in recent years, resulting in an escalating feud between rival factions that has led to the recent spike in violence, including the attempts on Azari's life. That lack of authority within the network, sources said, has left trigger-happy lower-ranking members free to call the shots with little regard for the consequences in a conflict that can't be linked to one particular incident but rather a series of minor issues within the broader network. The lack of senior leadership has also brought with it a departure from the meticulously planned and executed operations that have become synonymous with gangland killings of recent years. In its place, botched assassinations carried out by what police believe are inexperienced and incompetent hired killers chasing a lucrative contract. A suspected team of hitmen, the so-called 'Afghani crew', is believed to have been recruited into the internal conflict as contract killers. Among the warring factions, the KVT, a street gang made up of predominantly Fijian members and long enlisted as muscle for the Alameddines, has fallen out with the network. But the KVT is itself divided. A number of alleged members remain linked to Azari and other senior members of the Alameddine network who have led the organisation's attempted infiltration of Sydney's booming illicit tobacco trade. In January, several men linked to the Alameddine network and the KVT gang allegedly broke into a Condell Park storage unit and detained three men in an attempted robbery of millions of dollars worth of illicit tobacco. The men were allegedly tied up, and one had a toe severed. Far from a struggle between senior figures for control of what remains of the Alameddine empire, parts of the conflict, believed to centre on a series of minor grievances, stoop as low as the network's street-level operations. Once feared and protected by loyal followers, those at the top of the Alameddine organisation have been placed in the firing line by the conflict. The man police allege has climbed the ranks to head the network in Australia, Ali Elmoubayed, has himself received death threats and has been forced to flee the crime clan's long-time home suburb because of concerns for his safety. A week ago, Elmoubayed, a former bodyguard to Rafat Alameddine, inadvertently escaped a drive-by shooting at his Merrylands home by minutes. Elmoubayed was en route to Parramatta Local Court to ask a magistrate to let him relocate his young family when the bullets were fired. Four days earlier, a car outside the Earl Street home was firebombed. It is not clear whether the alleged shooters, who were arrested less than an hour after the incident, knew the house was empty and fired the shots as a warning, or if the attack was a genuine attempt on the gangland figure's life. Hours later, Elmoubayed's bail conditions were varied, allowing him to move to an inner-city high-rise apartment building with security features his lawyers argued would protect him and his family from future attacks. Loading His relocation was the latest indication of an emerging pattern in the conflict within the Alameddine network, with several of the crime clan's members and associates taking measures to alter their movements and make themselves less predictable for would-be assassins. A week earlier, Alameddine associate Ali Younes, widely known by his rap moniker, Ay Huncho, successfully argued for a change to his bail conditions so he could report to police over the phone rather than in person, fearing he would be targeted. Like Younes, the routines of several gangland figures have put them in the firing line of would-be assassins flying in the face of law enforcement as their stalking becomes more brazen. Police believe in two of the four attempts on Azar's life, gunmen followed him from a public place. On Monday, Azari was followed from a police station, which he left an hour before he was cornered inside the Auburn restaurant. Despite the best efforts of police to keep Azari safe, death threats still loom over him. After the Granville shooting, police warned there could be further attempts on Azari's life and raised concerns of retaliation as the conflict escalated. There would be further bloodshed on Sydney's streets because of Azari's standing in the Alameddine network, they said. Within weeks, police were proven right. In the days before Monday's shooting, and after another foiled attempt on his life in Rozelle on Friday, detectives repeatedly warned Azari of the risks posed to him should he remain on Sydney's streets. 'He was made aware of threats against his life,' Detective Superintendent Jason Box said on Tuesday. 'He acknowledged those threats against his life, to an extent, he was reasonably dismissive of what we had to say, and he's obviously continued his movements in the public area with not a great deal of concern.' This week, detectives have issued further warnings. 'I'm hoping that this individual reassesses his movements,' Box said. 'I'm hoping that he's not accessible. I'm hoping that he does take the advice that we've given and that it does not present an opportunity like we've seen yesterday.' But with little indication the warnings will be heeded, and gunmen inching closer to their goal, the warnings, like Azari's luck, may be wearing thin. 'We've given him all the information that we can … to assist him and protect himself,' Box said. 'What he chooses to do with that information is a matter for him.'
News.com.au
a day ago
- News.com.au
Tactical police have shot man during siege at a Sydney caravan park
Police have shot a man who allegedly lunged at them with a knife during a siege in a caravan park in southwestern Sydney. Police were called to a caravan park in Elderslie, in the Macarthur region, just after lunchtime on Thursday. NSW Police said in a statement the man was 'armed with a knife and made threats to self-harm.' 'Specialist resources attended to assist, and negotiators attempted to speak to the man who refused to co-operate,' the statement said. 'Just before 3.30pm, officers attached to the Tactical Operations Unit gained entry to the premises and the armed man rushed at officers with the knife. 'Police discharged a taser and less than lethal tactical rounds which were ineffective before the man was shot.' Police had locked down the area and refused to let locals back into the park as the situation developed. In footage obtained by 10 News, an officer in tactical gear can be seen pointing a rifle at somebody off-screen before three loud, sharp cracks are heard. The 52-year-old man was immediately treated by NSW Ambulance paramedics on scene and taken to Liverpool Hospital in a critical condition. He was reportedly shot at least three times, once in the arm, once in the leg and once in the abdomen. A witness at the scene said he was addressed by two 'heavily fortified police officers'. 'There was about eight of them all up and they weren't messing around. They had the full riot gear on, ready to go.' A critical incident team from State Crime Command's Homicide Squad will lead the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the incident. The investigation will be reviewed by the Professional Standards Command and oversighted by the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC).
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Daily Mail
BREAKING NEWS 'Knife-wielding' man is shot by police during dramatic Sydney siege
A police operation has unfolded in Sydney 's south west with one man shot after officers efforts to stop the man with a Taser and non-lethal rounds were ineffective. NSW Police were called to a caravan park on Macarthur Road at Elderslie to check on the welfare of an occupant just after 12.15pm on Thursday.
