Melbourne-based Chad Samupo commits violent crimes after being saved from deportation
A dangerous Apex gang member has continued to commit violent crimes against Victorians, despite being saved from deportation in 2017.
Victoria
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A dangerous Apex gang member saved from deportation by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal has gone on to commit more crimes of violence.
The AAT overturned a ministerial decision to kick Melbourne-based Chad Samupo out of Australia.
It did so despite being told by police the thug was responsible for a spree over several years of a “violent and anti-social nature” that began when he was 13.
The Herald Sun revealed in 2017 that the reasons for the decision to force Samupo back to New Zealand included that he “was or may be a risk to the health, safety or good order of the Australian community”.
Victoria Police has since charged Samupo with several more serious offences committed after the AAT decided not to cancel his visa.
Samupo, 23, recently pleaded guilty to seven charges, including two counts of unlawful assault, robbery, property damage and bail offences.
He is due to be sentenced in the Melbourne’ Magistrates’ Court today.
Previous offences on Samupo’s appalling criminal record include assaulting police, resisting arrest, assaulting an emergency worker, illegal drug use and possession, obtaining property by deception, committing indictable offences while on bail, contravening a police direction to move on and using abusive words in public.
A delegate for the then Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, cancelled Samupo’s visa in February 2017 and he was put in detention awaiting deportation to New Zealand.
Mr Dutton’s delegate told the AAT the serious and repetitive nature of the Apex gang member’s charges and convictions “indicated unacceptable behaviour in the Australian community and showed a disregard for Australian laws”.
Samupo then appealed to the AAT in the hope it would save him from being kicked out of the country.
The AAT chose not to name Samupo in its August 2017 written decision.
That ruling, made by AAT Deputy President Jan Redfern and AAT part-time member Alison Murphy, set aside the ministerial deportation decision and substituted it with a decision not to cancel the Apex gang member’s visa.
They did so even after the then head of Victoria Police’s anti-gangs squad, Det-Supt Peter De Santo, gave written and verbal evidence to the AAT that Samupo:
WAS a member of the Apex gang.
HAD taken a violent and aggressive leading role is serious offending as part of a group.
WAS linked with other persons involved in serious crimes.
USED illegal drugs.
WAS involved in serious driving offences with other associates, including a police pursuit involving a car being driven on the wrong side of the road.
The AAT members’ reasons for saving the Apex gang member from deportation included not wanting to separate him from his Melbourne-based family as well as his mental condition – they were told he had been treated for mental illness since 2013 and was diagnosed as bipolar in 2014.
“We accept his behaviour remains of concern and he remains at risk of reoffending, particularly in view of his serious mental illness,” the AAT’s 2017 written decision said.
“All these matters weigh towards cancellation of his visa.
“Weighing against these matters are the applicant’s long residence in this country, the fact his immediate family all reside here and the hardship that will be caused to the applicant and his family if his visa is cancelled.”
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