Terrorist Khaled Sharrouf’s brother Arken found not guilty of assault
A NSW District Court judge has delivered a verdict on the outcome of a brutal assault case involving the brother of one of Australia’s most notorious terrorists, Khaled Sharrouf.
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The brother of slain Australian terrorist Khaled Sharrouf has been found not guilty of the savage assault of a Sydney woman.
Arken Sharrouf claimed he was psychotic when he hospitalised his victim for nine nights last year, believing he was possessed by the devil and she was a police informant.
The 33-year-old was charged with grievous bodily harm, choking and intimidation, but pleaded not guilty due to mental illness.
This week NSW District Court judge Philip Ingram SC acquitted Sharrouf, but ordered him to be detained in a secure psychiatric institution until and unless the Mental Health Review Tribunal deems him safe for release.
Sharrouf’s victim broke down in tears as she recounted being drenched in her own blood on July 2, 2019, saying: “It was like he was a monster.”
She said the unemployed Peakhurst father choked and hit her before kicking and stomping on her.
“With one punch I fell to the floor … I was very dizzy, I was under his feet. All I could feel was the pounding of his fist on my face,” she said.
“My clothes were soaking wet. But it wasn’t water, it was blood.”
The victim said Sharrouf – a steroid user – ignored her pleas to stop as she drifted in and out of consciousness, “and then he got dressed and he went to the gym.”
The woman staggered into a police station late that night pleading for help with a fractured left eye socket, broken ribs and two fractured vertebrae.
“It was like he was drunk or had taken something … because no one that is normal would hit a female like that,” she said.
The previous day, Sharrouf hacked off the woman’s hair after screaming that it had grown too long.
“It was like he had a mask on, it wasn’t him,” she said.
“I was crying and I was shaking from the way Arken was looking at me.”
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Psychiatrist Dr Martin Reading told the court Sharrouf stopped taking his schizophrenia medication weeks before the alleged assault because he’d gained more than 20 kilograms, and also raised sex drive issues with his doctor.
That GP prescribed him an anti-obesity amphetamine which “significantly worsens schizophrenia symptoms”, the court heard.
In September Sharrouf told his psychiatrist: “I can’t remember what happened, I got angry and blacked out.”
His brother Khaled travelled to Syria to fight for Islamic State in 2013 and gained global notoriety while committing heinous war crimes in the self-proclaimed caliphate.
The court heard Sharrouf became depressed after his brother Khaled was killed in a US air strike in August 2017, and tried to self medicate by binging on alcohol.
Sharrouf had worked as a security guard at Sydney Airport sometime before 2011, the court heard.
In January Sharrouf was hit with more than 70 additional charges for alleged ongoing abuse against a former partner between May 2007 and October 2008.