Mohammad Skaf: Loathed gang rapist BLOWS UP at media

Notorious gang rapist Mohammed Skaf lost his temper with reporters just 48 hours after he walked free from prison.

The 38-year-old, who along with his brother orchestrated a series of gang rapes of teenage girls in Sydney ahead of the 2000 Olympics, was released into the community on Wednesday after serving a 21-year prison sentence.

He was pictured wearing the same salmon-coloured shirt he wore on Thursday as he reported to Corrections Officers at Bankstown to comply with parole.

‘You’ll be charged with trespassing,’ he shouted at waiting photographers when he arrived home.

Skaf tried to cover his face with paperwork from the child protection register as he ordered a mystery woman, believed to be his sister, who was with him to take photos of the press.

His face wrinkled and turned red behind his face mask and sunglasses as he screamed at reporters from the front of his parents’ home in Greenacre in Sydney’s south-west. 

‘He just blew up, pointed his finger and rushed back into his house,’ one of the photographers said.  

Skaf’s family have kept the curtains drawn and not left their home unless absolutely necessary since his return. 

On Thursday, Skaf got into a car with his sister and mother Baria for his mandatory parole meeting at about 2pm donning a pink t-shirt, dark sunglasses, flashy Nike footwear, black shorts and a visible ankle bracelet that will be used to monitor him 24 hours a day. 

He entered the Bankstown Community Corrections office on Rickard Road, where he will have to check in regularly as part of his strict release conditions which will see him under heavy surveillance for the next 26 months.

He was originally handed to a record 32-year prison sentence over the terrifying string of sexual assaults in Sydney involving at least 14 other men, including his ringleader brother Bilal.

But with his non-parole period up he was released back into the community on Wednesday from Long Bay prison, moving into his family with his parents, sister and younger brother.

The home is just metres from a park where one of the sickening attacks took place.

Few crimes in recent Australian history have stirred more community outrage and fear than the series of pack rapes committed by the group of young Lebanese-Australian men targeting ‘white women’ in the lead up to the 2000 Olympics.

One of the victims, an 18-year-old woman, was raped 40 times by 14 men over four hours in an attack coordinated by mobile phone. She was then dumped at a train station after being hosed down.

During her ordeal the woman was called an ‘Aussie pig’, told she was going to get it ‘Leb-style’ and asked if ‘Leb c*** tasted better than Aussie c***’.

Many of the rapists have never been identified and police fear there were more victims who did not come forward.  

Skaf has never publicly displayed any remorse for his heinous crimes and has repeatedly blamed his victims.

But with his maximum sentence expiring on January 1, 2024, the parole board feared if Skaf were to have served his full term in prison then authorities would have had no control over his reintegration back into the community when he finally got out. 

A decision was therefore made to grant Skaf parole so he could be closely supervised while living with his family who have lived on the street for decades.

When Skaf returned from his parole meeting in the front seat of the family’s white sedan, he took great care to help his mother out of vehicle before they disappeared down the driveway inside the home. 

Skaf emerged from Long Bay’s Metropolitan Special Programs Centre about 9.45am wearing a white Hugo Boss top, black track pants, sunglasses and Covid-19 mask.

He was then driven to the family’s home to his waiting parents, sister and younger brother; shouts of excitement could be heard from inside the newly-renovated house.

But some neighbours didn’t share the same joy, instead telling waiting media they were anxious about his return to the street. 

As he stepped into a Toyota Corolla driven by a Corrective Services officer reporters asked ‘Are you happy to be free?’ and ‘Are you sorry for what you’ve done?’ He did not respond. 

Three boxes of Skaf’s belongings were carried inside by Corrective Services officers who then left the property as news crews set up camp on the footpath. 

Skaf had remained unrepentant during his time in custody and chose not to address the media when attempts were made to speak to him through an intercom.

‘I’m not a rapist,’ he said two years ago after yet again being refused parole. ‘How can I have empathy for someone that wasn’t raped by me?

‘I’ve maintained my innocence for the last 19 years and I’ll ­maintain my innocence until the day I die.’

Skaf has supposedly accepted some responsibility for his actions since he made those comments and indicated a wish to get married, have children, find a job and study architecture.

When he was first locked up as a teenager there was no Facebook or Instagram and no smart phones. The World Trade Centre was still standing and John Howard was not even halfway through his four terms as prime minister.

‘The world has changed,’ Skaf said in 2019. ‘I’m still living in the early 2000s.’

The Skaf gang pack raped at least six women and girls who were were held against their will and repeatedly sexually assaulted in four attacks that shocked Australia and raised racial tensions to fever pitch in NSW. 

Skaf, who was convicted in relation to two of the rapes, was 17 at the time of the offences. His brother Bilal was almost 19 and is now 40.

Original sentencing judge Michael Finnane, who jailed Mohammed for 32 years in October 2002, described the gang’s crimes as ‘worse than murder’. 

Following a series of further convictions and appeals that term was reduced to a maximum of 22 years, 11 months and 30 days.

Skaf’s non-parole period on 16 years, 11 months and 30 days expired on January 1, 2018, more than three and a half years ago. 

Skaf’s sister, who along with his mother was recently diagnosed with Covid-19, told Daily Mail Australia the family was ready to welcome her brother home.

‘We’re looking forward to him coming home and hopefully he’ll start a life that we’ve never experienced before,’ she said. ‘We’re pretty excited and happy for him to come home.’  

The prisoner was considered a low to medium risk of ‘general re-offending’ but one Corrective Services psychologist assessed him as in the ‘well above average’ range of committing further sex offences. 

He had completed the High Intensity Sex Offenders Program in a ‘satisfactory manner’ and the Real Understanding Self Help course where he was described as a ‘consistently committed participant’. 

The State Parole Authority (SPA) granted Skaf’s release on September 17 under strict conditions including 24-hour electronic monitoring. 

‘Every determinate sentence imposed by a court comes to an end,’ the authority said in a statement. ‘Ordinarily, release is inevitable. 

‘It is clearly important to provide some structure to facilitate re-integration in the interests of community safety.  Release without the opportunity for structure or supervision makes little sense in terms of community protection.’ 

‘It is also reported that there has been a considerable shift in the applicant’s understanding of the aggravated sexual assault conviction, to the extent that he accepts that ‘perhaps’ consent had not been given by the victim,’ the SPA found.

‘The applicant reflected that he ‘was then 17 years and is now 38 and he would never be in that situation again’.  

Skaf has been offered post-release employment and his family’s recently renovated home was previously assessed as suitable by Community Corrections. 

Community Corrections reviewed that arrangement after youngest sibling Hadi pleaded guilty to supplying cocaine and dealing with the proceeds of crime. 

It is understood the difference between the nature of Mohammed and 22-year-old Hadi’s offending would not stop the former staying in the family home. 

The Skafs live on a quiet bottlebrush-lined street about 1.7km from Gosling Park where one of the gang’s pack rapes was committed on August 12, 2000.

Mohammed lured a 16-year-old girl he knew to the park where Bilal and a second gang member raped her while a dozen more young men stood around laughing. 

The second gang member held a gun to the teen’s head and kicked her in the stomach before she was able to escape. 

Less than three weeks after the Gosling Park attack, on August 30, 2000, Mohammed was the leader of four young men who approached an 18-year-old woman at Bankstown train station.  

Skaf took the woman’s phone and led her to public toilets in nearby Marion Street where he told her: ‘You won’t get your phone back until you f*** me.’

When the young woman refused Skaf said, ‘I’m going to f*** you Leb-style’, turned her around and raped her against a wall.

The SPA described the following ‘horrendous’ assaults committed upon the victim by the rest of the gang that night as violent, degrading and disgusting. 

The woman was raped 25 times by 14 attackers at three locations in an ordeal that lasted six hours. She was asked if ‘Leb c*** tasted better than Aussie c***’ before being sprayed with an industrial hose. 

Judge Finnane had compared the Skaf gang’s depravity to outrages committed by invading armies in times of war.

‘These were not random attacks and, in my view, they were aimed at creating terror in the community,’ Judge Finnane found.

He described Skaf as a menace to civilised society, and while Bilal – who was not eligible for parole until 2033 – had been the gang’s nominal commander, Mohammed had also taken a leadership role.

‘As the facts show, he, although quite young, is a vicious, cowardly bully, arrogant and a liar, as well as being a rapist,’ Judge Finnane said.  

As well as 24-hour electronic monitoring, Skaf will have to keep to a daily schedule and comply with ongoing psychological intervention.

He is banned from any form of contact with his victims or co-offenders and cannot visit the Liverpool, Fairfield, Blacktown or Parramatta council areas.

The Skaf family home is within the nearby Canterbury-Bankstown local government boundaries.   

Source: dailymail