Skaf gang rapes: Mohammed Skaf released from Long Bay jail
Dressed in designer clothes sporting a fresh haircut and ankle monitoring bracelet, gang rapist Mohammed Skaf has been released from Sydney’s Long Bay jail after 21 years behind bars.
Police & Courts
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Convicted gang rapist Mohammed Skaf walked to his restrictive freedom from Long Bay jail this morning, hidden behind a Covid-19 mask.
Flanked by two Corrective Services officers, the 38-year-old was controversially released into the sunshine after 21 years for a series of atrocious rapes in Sydney in 2000.
Wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet fixed to his ankle and a Hugo Boss white jersey, he stepped outside the prison doors and sauntered to a waiting prison Toyota Corolla to take him to his family home in Western Sydney.
He was transferred to Long Bay last week after spending some time at Kirkconnell correctional centre.
Skaf will be living in a granny flat at the rear of the family home in Western Sydney.
His parole conditions will include mandatory electronic monitoring with daily schedules, compliance with ongoing psychological intervention, a ban on any form of contact with his victims; a ban on contact with any co-offenders, as well as exclusion zone orders for the LGAs of Liverpool, Fairfield, Blacktown and Parramatta.
Shadow attorney-general Michael Daley said Skaf’s release was outrageous and his victims had every right to feel let down.
He said the government should have done one of two things. He said they should have applied to the Supreme Court for a continuing detention order to keep him locked up or waited until Covid restrictions were eased and day release was reinstated in the prison system and then he could be gradually introduced back to society.
One of the reasons given for his release was because of the cancellation of day release.
“This is Dominic Perrottet’s first fail,” Mr Daley said.
“He purports to be a family man and he’s just let one of the state’s worst rapists who is still unrepentant out on the streets.
“This is outrageous.”
Skaf was just a 17-year-old schoolboy when along with his older brother Bilal, 18, he led some of their mates in some of the most atrocious rapes, crimes that terrorised Sydney in the run-up to the 2000 Olympics.
One woman was raped 40 times by 14 men. Then-District Court Judge Michael Finnane QC, who jailed Mohammed for 32 years and Bilal for 55 years, described the crimes as worse than murder.
While their sentences were reduced on appeal and after other trials, Mr Finnane has said that chillingly, none of the men involved has ever said what motivated them or why they chose their victims. Some of those involved were never caught.
“What is still difficult for me to understand is why this serious criminal conspiracy involving so many young men was launched,” he wrote in his book The Pursuit of Justice.
“There was no obvious reason. Unlike many of the rape cases of which I am aware, there was no previous contact between any of the perpetrators and the victims, except for the second one in which Mohammed Skaf selected a 16-year-old from his school to be a victim.
“However, Bilal Skaf and the other actual rapist had never met her before. Why did the gang first of all go to a shopping centre at Chatswood? Why was the third victim plucked from a train?
“The fact is that right up to the present, none of the perpetrators have ever said why they became involved in these crimes. They were an attack on society, but why? What was it that caused Bilal Skaf to carefully plan this series of attacks on young women in Sydney? Why did those who joined him, become involved? These are questions that will probably never be answered.”
Now 38, Skaf has spent more than half his life in jail and the State Parole Authority said he needed time to transition back to life under supervision. His head sentence ends on January 1 2024.
“This is the only opportunity to supervise a safe transition into the community in the small window of time that we have left,” SPA Chairman David Frearson, SC said last month when announcing his release.
“Release without structure or supervision makes little sense for community protection.”
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