Posted on 08/02/2002 12:01:04 PM PDT by knighthawk
EXACTLY two years ago, as Sydney stood ready for the Olympics, one of the most appalling episodesin the city's history was unfolding. Now, for the first time, Cindy Wockner tells its complete story
THERE are condoms scattered in the brown Corona's glovebox, female clothing on the back seat.
There's a man named Sam and a white van that pops up more than once. A $50 note at the Harbour Bridge toll booth and a city so dazzled by the Olympic flame it's taken its eyes off the cockroach corners.
We're waiting for Cathy Freeman to breast the line, but three detectives are beginning to connect the dots – starting to understand that there is a group out there preying on teenage girls. Hunting its prey in a pack.
A group of young men behaving with increasing violence and sadism – communicating using mobile phones and masking their sickening intent in whispered Arabic.
While their colleagues took a $25 Olympic secondment bonus, three officers led by Detective Sergeant Michael Porta watched surveillance tapes frame by frame, painstakingly searched mobile phone records and began to hunt the hunters.
And then this guy's standing at the sergeant's desk asking questions about his mates. He's just committed a rape.
These bastards have got so much front it's frightening.
Constable Tamer Kilani's got a copper's instinct. A gut feeling for no good.
Twenty-two days before the Olympic opening ceremony, when the brass was shining its buttons and the streets are in coloured flags, Constable Kilani caught something out of the corner of his eye.
Four men stood around an unremarkable brown Toyota Corona in Wattle St, Punchbowl.
Nothing odd about that, but something didn't feel right.
He called in a registration check and did a U-turn as he learned it was expired. The car was already speeding away.
Constable Kilani planted his foot but the four men abandoned the vehicle and scuttled for cover like frightened cockroaches.
Just 15km from the site which would soon host 651 athletes and 500,000 spectators, Constable Kilani called for back-up and ran after them. They stopped and sneered. These four young and arrogant males of Lebanese origin knew Constable Kilani, an Arabic-speaking Muslim officer.
And he knew them. There was no use running. He knew their names and where they lived too.
It was 2.15pm on August 24, 2000. Back-up arrived and Constable Kilani and the others started searching the men and the brown car.
One of the men, a 17-year-old TAFE student who called himself Sam, had an Ansell condom in his pocket.
Opening the car's glovebox, Constable Kilani's eyes were drawn to five loose condoms and some women's clothing in the back seat.
He knew that detectives attached to the Child Protection Enforcement Agency were investigating at least four different gang rapes and attacks on young women in the area by males of Middle-Eastern appearance.
The men were taken back to Bankstown police station for questioning about the car and its lack of registration.
They mouthed off all the way.
Then something very curious happened. A 15-year-old in a tracksuit came to the police station counter and wanted to know what was happening to his mates.
The devil is in the detail and the officers knew that it must be more than coincidence that this arrogant teenager fitted the description of an offender from an earlier incident.
That day, as the Olympic torch made its slow journey from Port Macquarie to Coffs Harbour, Strike Force Sayda came into existence – with three dedicated detectives.
What would ultimately be revealed about the sickening activities of the young men in the car and their extended group during August 2000 would reveal an ugly underbelly of Sydney and a cultural conflict that would shake the city's foundations.
Later, sitting in the dock of court LG4, Sam watched, an arrogant sneer on his face, as his barrister suggested his young victim had moaned with pleasure in a putrid, stinking Bankstown public toilet.
In the witness box her face contorted with disgust and disbelief.
Two of the others in the car with him on August 24 would ultimately be convicted along with him of their roles in the degrading six-hour gang rape of the young woman we will call Jane.
As Sydney churned on to its second anniversary of the 2000 Olympics, the nation heard how these three young men – together with another 11, all of Lebanese origin – had, six days after the car was pulled over at Punchbowl, brutally gang-raped the young victim at three locations.
They called her an "Aussie pig", telling her: "I'm going to f*** you Leb style," and asking "How does Leb c**k taste, I bet it tastes better than Aussie c**k."
Jane straightened up her knee-length black skirt, splashed some water on her face and, in fright, took a few tentative steps outside the toilet.
A dark-skinned woman known only as Mary offered her help, then delivered her back to the rapists.
While Jane's saviour turned out to be her enemy, two other young women, who we will call Nicki and Amanda, were luckier.
It was 12.30am on August 11 when Anna and Con Christodolou, on their way home from a night out, turned into the darkness of Narellan St at Greenacre.
Near the corner of Northcote Ave, they saw two traumatised young women huddled together and calling for help.
They stopped reluctantly, Mr Christodolou fearing it might be a set-up.
Hearing the girls' story, they drove to a nearby house to call police, then waited with the terrified pair.
Nicki and Amanda had fallen prey to the same group of young males as Jane would 20 days later.
On August 10, shoppers browsing the stores during night shopping at Chatswood shopping centre on Sydney's north shore were unaware of the evil intent lurking amongst them.
Eight young men including Sam's older brother – an 18-year-old customer service employee with State Rail – had moved out of their comfort zone, away from the west and to the north in search of prey.
With him were four other males who would, later that month, go on to also be involved in Jane's attack – a 17-year-old who worked at a paving business and who had gone to school with Sam, a 17-year-old who would be described by his victims as the fat guy, his 16-year-old friend, 18-year-old Mahmoud Chami, an apprentice bricklayer, and Belal Hajeid.
All of them lived in the Greenacre area and were part of tight-knit group of friends.
As the evening wore on, the eight males moved into hunting mode, lurking around the sidewalk cafes in Anderson St.
Around this time Nicki and Amanda, two old friends aged 17 and 18, were finishing their Thursday night shopping ritual and, near the Nescafe Cafe in the same street, were preparing to catch their bus home.
Four males eyed the girls, then sauntered over to chat.
Soon another four males joined the group.
Amanda accepted a cigarette and before long they had reluctantly agreed to go for a drive with the men to smoke some marijuana.
Together with four males, Nicki and Amanda got into an old white van, which some in the group called a "shaggin' wagon". which had no seats in the back – only foam.
The other four males went in a red Toyota.
The van driver, who has never been caught, handed a $50 note to the operator to pay the $2.20 Harbour Bridge toll.
All the while the men conversed between vehicles in Arabic on their mobile phones.
About 11pm the white van finished its journey – at Northcote Park, Greenacre.
But instead of the promised marijuana there was terror and degradation – as the women were forced to repeatedly perform oral sex on eight men.
The attack on Nicki and Amanda was, at this stage, the tip of the iceberg.
There had been two earlier attacks upon teenage girls, including one girl who escaped from a train after being indecently assaulted by a group of four young men, including the fat guy and another who escaped, but not before she was forced to perform oral sex upon males in a park.
It was still early in the investigation and police were trying to establish links between the attacks.
One would come on August 12 when an old white van very much like the "shaggin' wagon" turned in to the public parking bays at Gosling Park Greenacre about 9.30pm. It was in convoy with a blue hatchback.
Sitting inside a red four-door hatchback already parked there was a 16-year-old girl we will call Cathy.
Dressed in black pants and blue woollen jumper, she watched with a rising fear as eight young men of Lebanese appearance got out of the van, including Sam's older brother, the railway employee who told her was also called Sam. Another three men were in the blue car.
Earlier that night, as the curtain came up at Sydney football stadium in readiness for the first NRL semi-final between Parramatta Eels and Penrith at about 6.30pm, Cathy's mobile telephone had rung at her home at Glenwood Park.
Sam, who she had met eight months earlier at McDonalds, invited her on a drive to the city. It was to be a night that would change her life forever.
Between 8.30 and 9pm Sam arrived in a red four-door hatchback car with two other males. Mobile phones were running hot in the cars as the young men used their powerful weapon of choice, calling up their friends and speaking in Arabic so she could not understand – organising the posse for that night's rape.
Cathy was dragged by the hair, held down by up to a dozen men and raped twice – first by Sam's older brother. With a gun held at her head she realised that, if she did not run, she may not survive this night.
As news of the latest sinister attack reached the ears of Sgt Porta, a link was being made – a white van had been involved in both the August 10 and August 12 attacks and the name Sam was becoming a common thread. So was the use of mobile phones.
As Olympic euphoria built up, the evil lurking in the Greenacre and Bankstown areas was becoming more audacious as the days of August wore on.
They were crimes borne of elaborate planning, where young white women were being made pawns in an increasingly violent outpouring of sexual subjugation.
As the three detectives assigned to the cases worked to establish links, Police Commissioner Peter Ryan was out to cement his reputation as the best Olympic security advisor in the world and help land himself a job with the Athens Olympics.
In February this year, as that role appeared more certain for Mr Ryan, outside the drab doors of Lidcombe Children's Court a teenage girl felt shudders wrack her body.
Her whole body was shaking she walked through the court door and glanced in the direction of a 16-year-old boy.
Fear and revulsion rose in her throat as he returned the look.
Like the fat guy had already done, he was about to plead guilty to indecently assaulting her on a train on August 4, 2000.
At 8.05pm and with 42 days to go before the Olympics, Angela finished her part-time job in the city and got on a train heading home to Punchbowl.
Her head was full of the contagious Olympic excitement sweeping the city – she was thrilled because she had been chosen to dance in the Opening Ceremony.
Daylight saving started early in 2000 in preparation for the Olympics so it was still light when she looked up and saw four males sauntering toward her.
The males, including the fat guy, sat down. As if it was a completely natural question, one asked "will you f*** me?" as he exposed his penis.
Then, in an act that would be repeated on many, many occasions in the coming month, the shrill tone of a mobile phone rang out.
Laughing, the fat guy, said hello.
"I've got a slut with me bro, come to Punchbowl," he said.
At the station she got out and ran away as fast as she could.
This was the genesis of evil August, 2000, in Sydney's west.
Within 20 days, one of Angela's attackers would be caught. He was the one who turned up at the police station.
As Peter Ryan hosted yet another press conference, announcing the Stadium Australia "lock down", Sgt Porta and Detective Senior Constable Olly O'Keefe were carefully studying each rolling frame from of a railway surveillance video taken at Bankstown railway station on the afternoon of August 30.
Amongst the hundreds of people getting on and off trains that day they watched astutely as the young victim Jane came into view. With her were five men who would change her life forever.
The officers sat up straighter in their seats as they realised that three of the men – Sam, the fat guy and a 16-year-old – had been in the car pulled over earlier by Constable Kilani.
The police net was closing.
That night midnight raids were conducted on the homes of Sam, the fat guy and the 16-year-old.
Swept up in the growing Olympic excitement, people queued for hours at SOCOG's Broadway headquarters to buy Olympic tickets. The officers of Strike Force Sayda were not among them.
They were busy getting copies of the mobile phone records of their suspects.
Scanning the calls made on the nights of the different rapes, they discovered that the men had been in constant contact with each other on these days.
Furthermore, their mobile phones were bouncing off towers closest to the rape sites – showing they had in fact been in the areas at the relevant times.
With 10 days to go to the Olympics, IOC boss Juan Antonio Samaranch was being feted by Sydney's Olympic heavyweights on a tour of the Olympic village.
That night 16-year-olds who we will call Laura and Ellen were taken to a fibro Villawood home with a hole in the front wall and a slashed flyscreen.
At that family home with its old-fashioned kitchen they were separated, taken to different rooms and repeatedly raped at knifepoint while the men employed a sick game, playing them off against each other.
As detectives learned with horror of yet another gang rape it became evident to everyone that this was a far more serious problem than at first thought – and Inspector Kim Mackay from Crime Agencies was assigned to head up the strike force.
I know in our PC/multicultural/celebrate diversity era it is impolitic to state the obvious, but here goes: These are not men. They are animals. They need to be put down just like dangerous wild beasts.
I give you points for creativity. But I still like mine better. Kill them like dogs. That gets a pretty clear message across too.
This is not racism, don't ya know, cause they are minorities and have no power.
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