Gang rapist claims right to assault

Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) ^ | December 10, 2005 | Natasha Wallace

[Mount Athos]

THE eldest of four Pakistani gang rapist brothers has admitted lying at trial and apologised to his victims but said he thought he had a right to rape the "promiscuous" teenage girls.

MSK, 27, told the NSW Supreme Court yesterday that this was because the girls did not wear headscarves, were drinking alcohol and were unaccompanied when they went to his Ashfield home. MSK also blamed his intoxication, "cultural beliefs" and an undiagnosed mental disorder.

He and his brothers MAK, 25, MRK, 21, and MMK, 19 - who cannot be named for legal reasons - are serving between 10 and 22 years for raping two girls in 2002. All except MRK are yet to be sentenced for several other rapes.

Yesterday evidence was being heard on a sentence for MSK for the rapes of two more girls, TW, then 14, and CH, then 13. He admitted that some of the evidence he had given at an earlier trial was fabricated, particularly that he had had consensual sex with TW and that she had coaxed him.

"It was a pretty big untruth when you said that it was consensual sex, wasn't it?" asked the Crown prosecutor, Ken McKay.

"Yes," he replied.

You chose to lie about that, correct? - Yes.

During a long apology to TW, who was in court, he stopped mid-sentence to reprimand her.

"I wish to say this to [TW], that at the time when I commit these offences I come from such a background which led me to - don't shake your head, I'm telling you something - I say now that I hurt you and I'm extremely, extremely apologetic to you and I'm, I wish to say one thing more.

"I'm serving 22 years … I'm just requesting to you that you one day may come that you realise that the person who assaulted me is in prison … and I should forgive him. I'm asking for your forgiveness." He said it was only now, since he had gained a "better understanding of Australian culture", that he knew the rapes were wrong.

He arrived in Sydney for the ninth and final time four days before committing several rapes over six months. He had planned to study medicine.

He agreed he knew the girls did not want to have sex. "[TW] said no but I go ahead with it because I believe that at the time I commit these offences, I believe that she was promiscuous …" he said. "She don't know us, I don't know her, like she was not related to us and she was not wearing any purdah … like she was not … covered her face, she was not wearing any headscarf and she started drinking with us and she was singing.

"First off, I was actually, I was not taking my medication so I was under the influence of voices and secondly I believe at the time when I commit these offences that she had no right to say no."

Mr McKay said the voices excuse was a last-ditch strategy to avoid justice. "You wanted to hurt and terrorise these girls and you did that. You used acts of sexual intercourse on them."

The matter was adjourned until next Friday.

[Fred Nerks]

They are the sons of a medical doctor and they are rapists. Lee Glendinning reports on two of four brothers found guilty of gang rape in attacks that upended the NSW legal system:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/27/1069825922999.html

[Lorianne]

Ok, let's agree with the rapist.
And since he has been "promiscous" his inmates in prison have the same "right".

[drhogan]

but, do they hang the offender or the victim?

[Gaffer]

"Muzzzies" is the new word for them...just like the "skinnies" in Mogadishu.....or "Charlie" in Vietnam...and on and on and on....the Earth's dregs....

[MrBambaLaMamba]

Undiagnosed mental disorder religion of rape bump

[Chode]

i'm sure the big queer they put him in the cell with will think the same thing of him... i hope he likes tossed salad.

[instantgratification]

Men found guilty of rape in Muslim countries face the death penalty.

[instantgratification]

Incidentally, the death penalty is not in accordance with sharia, which stipulates that unmarried men be lashed for committing rape, and married men be stoned to death (because they are committing adultery).

The problem for women is that burden of proof is quite high.

[calex59]

Oh, I see, it is the religion of piece, not peace and this allows them to rape at will. Well, that makes it ok then. I thought he raped them because he was a vicious, lying, criminal, scumbag, muslim terrorist! This clarifies it and makes it right/S

[Mount Athos]

You have a lot to learn about islam, and islamic court justice in muslim countries.

Women complaining of rape in muslim countries face the death penalty and lashes, directed by courts. Read about Islamic Sharia law, the religious legal code which guides many islamic countries.

Rape creates an especially difficult burden of proof for the victim. Shari'ah law only provides for punishment in cases of adultery, if both parties admit to have committed the "crime". If this is not the case, four independent witnesses have to be found; however, the witnesses must be male. In cases of rape, shari'ah rules that a rapist is to be punished with 100 lashes, if unmarried, or with death by stoning, if married, since this would then constitute adultery.

A pregnancy as a result of rape first of all counts as evidence of adultery committed by the woman. The rape victim then has to prove that she really was raped. In case the man - which is very likely - denies that he has raped the woman, the woman has to name four male witnesses to prove the rape. In case the woman does not find these four male witnesses - which again is very likely - she will be charged with slander.

For the crime of slander, shari'ah prescribes a punishment of 80 lashes. On top of that, the woman will be charged with adultery, and is thus threatened with the death penalty, if she is married. In case, she is unmarried, the "adultery" counts as immoral behaviour and is punished with 100 lashes. This is at least what the criminal code of January 2000 of the Nigerian state Zamfara says.

At the beginning of 2002, four stoning verdicts against women in Islamic states were announced: two in Nigeria, one in Sudan and one in Pakistan. Each woman had been charged with adultery.

35-year old divorcee Safiya Husaini from the Northern Nigerian state Sokoto had been reported to the police for extramarital sexual intercourse during her pregnancy. Consequently, she was sentenced to death by stoning by the Islamic court of the town of Gwadabawa on 14 October 2001. It would have been the first case ever in Nigeria of an execution under Islamic law. This sentence and this type of punishment quite clearly violates the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights as well as the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading treatment or Punishment, both ratified by the Republic of Nigeria.

At the beginning, Safiya Husaini had testified that she had been raped by a 60-year old man of her village. The man was acquitted for lack of evidence. Later Safiya, who has five children, changed her testimony and declared that her divorced husband was the father of the child.

Safiya Husaini's fate led to world-wide protests, amongst which protest by 77 MPs of the European Parliament and by a parliamentary assembly from 130 countries in the capital of Morocco, Rabat. The protests had the effect that the Nigerian Minister of Justice declared in his letter of 18 March 2002 to the governors of the federal states which had introduced shari'ah law that shari'ah was unconstitutional, because it officially was only applicable to Muslims. Furthermore, shari'ah stood in contradiction to the constitutional principle of equality. As a response, the governor of Zamfara, Ahmed Sani, who is an advocate of the strict application of Islamic law, argued that, on the contrary, shari'ah was an expression of the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion. Nevertheless, on 25 March 2002, Safiya Husaini was acquitted by the Islamic court of appeal in Sokoto on the basis of juridical procedural errors.

he protest and discussion of the case of Safiya Husaini did not lead to an overall reassessment of the application of this type of punishment for adultery, as some might have hoped. On the contrary, shortly before Husaini's acquittal, on 22 March 2002, 35-year old Amina Lawal was sentenced to death by stoning for the same "offence" by a shari'ah court in the Nigerian federal state of Katsina. The court in Bakori considered the extramarital sexual relationship of the divorced women a proven fact. Amina Lawal, too, had been reported to the police while pregnant. The charge against the man who has been named as the father was dropped. Amina Lawal had given birth to a child one and a half years after her second divorce. A women's organisation announced the appeal was to be brought before an appeals court in the beginning of April 2002. In the meantime, the government of Katsina announced that protests will neither influence the trial nor the government.

International protest helped in the case of 18-year old Christian Abok Alfa Akok in the West-Sudanese town Darfur who was charged with adultery and sentenced to death by stoning on 8 December 2001. In March 2002 the verdict was transformed into 75 lashings to be carried out immediately. Interesting here is the fact that by convicting a Christian this case stands in direct contrast to statements by Islamists that shari'ah is not applicable to non-Muslims. This is a tendency which can also be observed concerning issues such as alcohol prohibition, dress codes and gender separation on public transport.

In April 2002 a stoning verdict was reported in south-western Pakistan. Apparently, Zafran Bibi who originally had accused her brother-in-law of rape, had been convinced by the police to admit that she had committed adultery. In order to prove the rape, four male witnesses would have been necessary as well. After protests from human rights groups, the supreme court of Pakistan allowed an appeal and ordered the temporary suspension of the execution in the beginning of May. So far, death penalties in accordance with the respective Pakistani law have not been carried out. However, "lynch-law" is known to have been applied to adulterers.

[calex59]

Yeah, right. It takes four male witnesses to the crime to charge a muslim male with rape. It almost never happens, and I want to know what kind of men would stand around watching a women get raped and do nothing about it when they have the rapist outnumbered 4 to 1. This religion sucks, I have tried to be tolerant but the more I see and hear of these scummy bast*** the more I realize they are evil clear through.

[JoeSixPack1]

- don't shake your head, I'm telling you something -

Oh this guy needs a beating, one so bad, so brutal, and so painful that even his spawn are born obedient.

[DieHard the Hunter]

So is Islam therefore a major World Religion, or a bizarre Misogynist Misanthropic Doomsday Death Cult?

I hope it is the former, but fear it is the latter...

[JoeSixPack1]

Do you have any idea how far from reality your statement is?

[F-117A]

MSK = Mohammed SK
MAK = Mohammed AK
MMK = Mohammed MK
MRK = Mohammed RK

[instantgratification]

No - The four witnesses are required to prove adultery, not rape.

As for religion, as I posted before, there are over a billion Muslims in the world. There are many Muslim countries which are peaceful and even promote women's rights.

And as for standing and watching during a gang rape, that happens pretty much everywhere. It's not restricted to Pakistanis. It is common throughout the world. Including in the US. It has nothing to do with Islam and more to do with attitudes toward women.

[instantgratification]

That is the law on the books in Pakistan, and where a rapist is found guilty, it is carried out.

In the Western world, rapists get anywhere from 2 years to life sentences for rape. Do you know how many of those rapists actually serve full sentences? Less than 1 in 10.

I suspect in the Western countries, more rapists will serve sentences because of DNA evidence. But what will remain an issue is consent.

[instantgratification]

I never stated that women are not punished for adultery in Islam. Nor have I ever stated that in Pakistan, women have rights equal to those of men.

But the gross Islamophobic generalizations in this thread need to be refuted.

This crime had nothing to do with Pakistani "culture". It had to do with thugs who were caught, and then tried to justify their crimes. Just as every criminal does.

[Auntie Dem]

ROP vermin.

Rape Only Prostitutes ?

Or perhaps it means:

Rape Our People

[Mordacious]

"It has nothing to do with Islam and more to do with attitudes toward women."

Bull. Islam is a religious codification of misogyny and exhorts its members to subjugate women. And rape victims in muslim countries don't get justice. They get murdered by their nearest and dearest for 'dishonoring' the family. Wake up.