Melbourne gang hoods Justin Amituanai and Khoder El-Hawli pleads guilty to savage crime wave
A Melbourne hood carjacked multiple victims during a horror “crime wave” while his vile mate raped a woman by knifepoint.
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A machete-wielding Melbourne “gangster” who raped a young woman stormed out of his court link and refused to reappear after sobbing he wouldn’t be safe in prison if his vile sex offending was exposed by the media.
Khoder El-Hawli, 20, fronted the County Court on Monday after pleading guilty to multiple rape offences.
El-Hawli attacked a random 30-year-old woman while she walked through a park in Melbourne’s west in November last year.
The grub, who was armed with a machete, walked up behind the woman and demanded she hand over her phone and transfer money from her bank account.
When she asked why he was doing this, he replied: “I’m a gangster”.
After robbing her, he dragged her into some bushes at knifepoint, telling her “I want some of this” and ordered the victim take off her pants.
El-Hawli said “don’t you suck d--k, haven’t you done this before?” after the victim “froze in terror”.
El-Hawli held the machete against the woman, who thought she was going to be killed, and threatened to cut her legs off.
“I hope you don’t have AIDS or anything,” El-Hawli said before he raped the victim.
The woman attempted to grab the machete to protect herself after El-Hawli put the weapon down but the rapist overpowered the victim, finished his assault and left her in the bushes.
The court heard the “traumatised” victim was “left scarred for life” and had since moved interstate to “escape the horror she had been subjected to”.
El-Hawli and gang crony Justin Amituanai later committed a savage one-day “crime wave” through Melbourne’s west and north.
Amituanai, 22, who appeared via videolink from Barwon Prison, pleaded guilty to aggravated carjacking and armed robbery.
The gang menace also bragged about his criminal lifestyle on social media.
El-Hawli, who appeared via videolink from Ravenhall Correctional, also pleaded guilty to multiple aggravated burglary and armed robbery charges.
El-Hawli and Amituanai, who swapped gang hand signals with each other while their horrific offending was read out in court, attacked their first victim early on November 13, 2022.
The crims carjacked a “terrified” 44-year-old man sitting in his car outside of Melton Laundrette on Station St about 11.15am.
El-Hawli couldn’t drive a manual so the hapless crims fled on foot.
About 15 minutes later the crooks, who wore “hooded clothing with the hoods up”, carjacked a 30-year-old man who was parked at a friend’s Melton South home.
El-Hawli threatened to “stab” the victim with a machete before the thugs took off with the man’s Toyota Corolla.
El-Hawli and Amituanai later dumped the car at the Bell St Mall car park Heidelberg West just after 4pm.
The hoods then attempted to carjack a 30-year-old man’s white Porsche Macan.
El-Hawli cut the victim four times with a “large knife” and robbed his car keys, phone, and a luxury watch after the man initially refused to hand over his car.
The duo drove to an Altona North factory where El-Hawli pulled his machete on two women and demanded cash.
The frightened women fled while El-Hawli and Amituanai broke into the factory and stole a gold Buddha statue, bank cards, $10,000 in jewellery and $6000 cash.
The duo were on Bellbridge Drive Hoppers Crossing when they spotted two 16-year-old boys walking by the Bellbridge Reserve just after 630pm.
El-Hawli pulled his machete on the teens and threatened to kill the victims.
“You’re gunna (sic) give me your s--t right now,” El-Hawli said.
El-Hawli stabbed a teen who refused to hand over his phone.
El-Hawli and Amituanai robbed the victim and left the teen with a deep wound which punctured his lung.
The court heard the victim’s mother had just made her son’s favourite meal for dinner and was about to pick him up.
The mother, in her victim impact statement read to the court, described the “panic and terror” she felt when she got the call her son had been stabbed.
She said she ran to her car and started “driving in terror”.
The mother also said she remembered “imagining the worst in (my) mind”.
“(I was thinking) where is my baby boy, was he bleeding, how bad was it,” the mother said.
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She remembered holding her son as he lay on the ground while paramedics tended to him, telling him “how much I loved and adored him”.
The mother realised she hadn’t shed a tear because she’d been “too focused on getting her son treated and making sure he was safe” in the weeks after the horror attack.
The mum also said she “cried uncontrollably” when the “reality of the random attack” on her son sunk in.
El-Hawli noticeably protested when the possibility he could be made a registered sex offender for 15 years was raised in court.
“I’m not even like that man,” he yelled.
“If you put me on the register it’s just going to f--k my life even more.”
El-HawLi was later arrested at Melton South.
El-Hawli, who threw a tantrum when he learned his vile rape would be exposed in the media, stormed out of his prison link and refused to return.
Judge Gerard Mullaly eventually heard the matter in El-Hawli’s absence.
El-Hawli, who claimed he was “scared for his safety”, and Amituanai, formerly of Craigieburn, will be sentenced at a later date.
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