Sick baby killer wins halal discrimination case against state

A butcher who murdered and dismembered his newborn child was unfairly discriminated against in prison because he wasn’t given his own toaster to cook halal food, a tribunal has found.

A butcher who murdered and dismembered his newborn child was unfairly discriminated against in prison because he wasn’t given his own toaster to cook halal food, a tribunal has found.

Convicted killer Raymond Ali took legal action against the Queensland Government over his treatment while he was a prisoner at the Woodford Correctional Centre serving a life sentence for the murder of his baby.

The Muslim man said he had been unable to use a shared toaster because other prisoners would regularly use it to heat ham and other pork products that violated his halal diet.

Ali served 17 years in prison for the gruesome murder of his baby daughter Chahlene.

He beat the child to death at the family’s Logan home in 1998 before dismembering her body and burying the remains.

Raymond Akhtar Ali

The former Halal butcher was paroled and deported to Fiji in 2017 but brought legal action against the government, seeking $20,000 in compensation.

In a decision published this week, the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal found the state indirectly discriminated against Ali over a period from 2016 to 2017 by failing to provide an alternative to the shared toaster.

But the tribunal made no compensatory orders, finding the contravention was eventually remedied, “albeit later than it should have been”.

Ali had also claimed he was discriminated against when he was served non-halal food at the Princess Alexandra Hospital but the tribunal found in favour of the state.

Ali participated in a QCAT hearing via videolink from Fiji in February this year and gave evidence he had made repeated requests for an alternative to the communal toaster starting in July 2016 when he was transferred between correctional centres from Wolston to Woodford.

Ali was advised the correctional centre would not provide a personal toaster but he would be given access to the necessary cleaning items to “thoroughly wash and clean the toaster grill to your acceptable standard prior to your using it”.

“From the evidence I have heard and read, I do not regard the cleaning suggestion as a practical solution for Mr Ali, despite much expressed belief to the contrary by the respondent’s witnesses, ” QCAT member Jeremy Gordon wrote in his decision.

“The grill was popular with prisoners in the unit at breakfast time and there was often a queue of prisoners to use it.”

A decision was later made by Queensland Corrective Services staff to provide Ali with a separate toaster that would be locked away between uses, however by then he was moved to a different unit.

Member Gordon said the arrangements had not adequately met Ali’s needs and the eventual provision of a toaster meant it would have been a reasonable solution when he first asked.

“Instead … steps should have been put in place to obtain a separate toaster which would be locked in an officer’s station,” he wrote.

“I take into account here the special considerations applying to prisoners and prisons in (the legislation) … and the need to find a solution which did not interfere with security and was not disproportionate in use of resources, or expense, and was not an excessive operational burden or too disruptive.”

Years earlier in 2013, Ali won $3000 in compensation after he was served vegetarian food instead of non-halal meals for four months in prison.