Mohammed Skaf eats pizza and garlic bread after prison release
After 21 years on a prison diet, gang rapist Mohammed Skaf had a hearty breakfast ordered to his parents’ Greenacre home.
Police & Courts
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After 21 years of a bland prison diet, gang rapist Mohammed Skaf woke up to his share of five pizzas and some garlic bread delivered in time for breakfast on Thursday morning.
Skaf, 38, could be seen peering out from behind the curtains of the front window of his parents’ home in Greenacre after the 8.30am delivery instead of looking out at the world through bars, as he has done for most of his life.
He has walked free from jail on parole into another controversy as The Daily Telegraph can reveal the serial rapist was never asked to pay a cent towards freezing his sperm after he was diagnosed with cancer in 2002, two years after his arrest.
He cried and thought about killing himself after being told treatment for Hodgkin’s disease would leave him sterile, a court was told.
The government of the day vowed Skaf would have to pay a bill of around $250 a year to keep the sperm stored cryogenically but Justice Health, the division of NSW Health that covers medical treatment for prisoners, never asked him to pay a cent.
The government also vowed it would stop any more serious criminals from assessing the “service”. Nothing was done.
“I can tell you that Justice Health’s policy has not changed at all. The eligibility has not changed,” a source said on Thursday.
Justice Health refused to say if it had a policy — but it does.
Policy no 1.438 or the “assisted reproductive technology and parentage testing”. There is no policy covering costs.
A Justice Health spokeswoman said the decision to freeze sperm from patients undergoing cancer treatment, that may make them infertile was based on a clinical recommendation from their treating oncologist in conjunction with the (Justice Health) Network.
“Before this occurs, the prisoner would need to seek approval from the Commissioner CSNSW,” the spokeswoman said.
The prisons commissioner can only become involved if permission is sought before treatment, it is understood.
Sadly for Skaf, who had told prison authorities he wanted to marry and have children, he was told that his sperm could only be stored cryogenically for 10 years. Time ran out in 2012.
He has never shown any remorse for the horrendous attacks on the women, one of whom was raped 40 times by 14 men over six hours, but he told a psychologist in 2002 how his suffering from cancer had made him more “compassionate and understanding” of other people’s pain and suffering.
“Mr Skaf told me that if he was able to survive his cancer, he was keen to explore how he would be able to help other young men diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease,” clinical psychologist Marianne Plahn-Williamson told the Court of Criminal Appeal which in 2005 made the first reduction to his jail sentence.
She recommended that he be allowed greater access to learning programs to “allow this young (man) to be given the opportunity to rehabilitate mentally, physically and socially.
He was released on strict parole on Wednesday to return to live with his parents Mustapha and Baria, who have stood by him since his arrest led him and his older brother Bilal that terrified Sydney in the lead-up to the Sydney Olympics.
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