Melbourne hoods Khoder El-Hawli and Justin Amituanai jailed for ‘appalling’ bloodthirsty violence
A “perverse” gang hood threatened to chop a woman up while he had a machete on her during a brutal rape in Melbourne’s west.
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A machete-wielding Melbourne “gangster” who raped a young woman before going on a violent terror crime campaign has been jailed and is now a classified sex offender.
Khoder El-Hawli, 20, was sentenced in the County Court on Monday after to a minimum eight-year jail term 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.
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.
Judge Gerard Mullaly said the pair’s offending was “appalling”.
“It was grave and dangerous criminality …,” Judge Mullaly said.
“all the crimes were committed on public streets, they were committed in company, these were offences committed with utter disregard for the terror caused by you men to the victims …
“Each of the victims were just going about their business, the women were at work, the young men were just socialising …
“In each crime … an extremely frightening and dangerous weapon was displayed or brandished …
“The nature of this offending escalated in gravity as the day went on, that is, creating fear of a weapon, to brandishing one, to using the weapon to stab and slash …
“This brazen lawlessness committed on ordinary citizens just going about their business creates great fear in the wider community …
“It is corrosive of the community’s sense of safety, the community demands a stern response from the courts, that is so proper social values are reasserted …
“Feeling safe in our streets (feeling) safe from groups of knife-wielding young offenders who appear to have no regard for others is a matter of real importance to our community …”
Judge Mullaly said El-Hawli had a “perverted sense of entitlement” who violated the victim in the “most abhorrent ways”.
“You perpetrated these violent crimes at knifepoint, you took the victim to a more secluded area, increasing her terror …,” he said.
“You were persistent … you displayed absolutely no regard for her bodily integrity or her personal dignity, she was, to you, only someone you wanted to violate for your own perverse pleasures …
“It was a violent and brutal attack …"
El-Hawli was jailed for a maximum of 12 years and three months and made a registered sex offender for 15 years.
Amituanai, formerly of Craigieburn, was jailed for a maximum six years and 11 months with a non-parole period of four years and six months.
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