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THE two mobile phones the rapist Skaf brothers were found with had been in the prison system for possibly two years. A source told The Daily Telegraph yesterday Bilal Skaf had been phoning family and a small number of friends for some years. He had bragged to people he was able to get phones into the prison system by using the protection of legal privilege, without the knowledge of their solicitors. Legal papers mailed to clients in jail cannot be opened by the prison authorities, but are all X-rayed. The Daily Telegraph has been told Skaf had tried to recruit people up to two years ago to copy the letterhead of his solicitor's firm and then mail a thick wad of legal-looking papers with a phone hidden in a cavity. One prison guard said while it would be difficult to get a phone through an X-ray machine "it could be feasible". Gallery and video: Come inside Sydney's Supermax prison Commissioner Ron Woodham vehemently denied this and said Bilal had only received two bulky lots of mail in the past four years. "There's no way in the world that would have happened," Mr Woodham said. "The X-ray machines would pick up a mobile phone through two or three phone books. I'm inclined to think the phone has come from another jail on escort and someone hasn't checked the luggage well enough." It was also revealed yesterday a third phone, found in another Goulburn cell, was functioning. The Daily Telegraph (30-5-2009) Rhett Watson |
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THE gang rapist Skaf brothers prised apart a steel cabinet to hide two mobile phones in their maximum security jail cell. The details of the pair's underhanded concealment methods emerged last night as prison authorities remained baffled as to how two of the country's most notorious criminals smuggled phones into Goulburn prison. One option being considered is that the phones were thrown over the prison walls, which Corrective Services senior officer Don Rodgers admitted could occur, The Daily Telegraph reports. The phones' discovery last night led Commissioner Ron Woodham to vow that Bilal, 27, and Mohammed, 26, will never see each other again while they are behind bars. "No. Never. They'll be in different jails and they'll never be together again," he said. Both were strip-searched after the phones were found and moved into segregation where they will stay for two to three months until the investigation is complete. Mohammed was moved to Lithgow jail and Bilal will remain in Goulburn jail's segregation section. One of the phones had a SIM card, making it live. There was no reason to believe it had not been used. Prison investigators will use the SIM card from the Skafs' phone to work out how many calls were made, to whom and, possible, how long it has been in the jail. There was speculation in Corrective Services that the calls would be more of a personal nature than criminal. Prison officers only became aware of the smuggled contraband after a tip-off led to a raid on several cells on Tuesday morning. The brothers, who shared a cell, had managed to drill out the rivets on a cabinet which has a tubular steel frame and sheet metal covering it. They had popped one of the sheets off the bottom of the cabinet, hidden the phones on the frame and then placed the sheet metal skin back over it. "After that we've ramped up the searches in the jail and pulled apart every piece of furniture in all the cells," Mr Woodham said. "We had a special team brought down from Sydney to get involved and we had about 80 to 90 officers from different areas sent in to do the search." While Prisons Minister John Robertson yesterday said the discovery of the phones showed the "system actually works", the State Government was criticised that two notorious criminals, guilty of the worst pack rapes in NSW, were able to get phones in jail. Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell said that the Government had a lot of explaining to do. "What we know is they've been found in one of the most secure prisons in this state and they are owned, apparently, by two of the state's most notorious rapists," he said. "When courts send serial rapists like the Skaf brothers to jail ... there is meant to be punishment. The public does not expect them to have access to mobile phones." The Government hopes to reduce the problems with mobile phone smuggling by creating jamming systems at its jails. Mr Robertson said he hoped to receive approval from the Federal Government to trial a system at Lithgow jail. He also said the system that allows siblings to stay in the same cells was also being reviewed. Southwest region corrective services assistant commissioner John Dunthorne said the Skafs were together because: "It's very hard to place any Skaf in any jail and certainly not with any other inmate. Nobody wants a bar of them." The Daily Telegraph (29-5-2009) Rhett Watson/ Kara Lawrence |
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CONVICTED gang rapist Bilal Skaf has no friends in jail and is at risk of being killed by other prisoners, a Sydney court has been told. Skaf and an associate, who can be referred to only as AA, were convicted in the NSW Supreme Court in April over the August 2000 pack rape of a 16-year-old girl in Greenacre's Gosling Park, in Sydney's west. During the pair's sentencing submissions today, Skaf's lawyer, Peter Zahra SC asked acting Justice Jane Mathews to take into account that his client, already serving a 28-year sentence for other offences, was approaching nearly six years in custody. He said Skaf, who has been convicted twice of the Gosling Park attack, had "no friends" in prison and faced "onerous" and "very dangerous" conditions. "There are prisoners that want to kill him - and they are not from any particular ethnic group," Mr Zahra said. AA's lawyer Matthew Johnston said his 22-year-old client should have the opportunity to participate in educational programs inside jail, which would "certainly go to his prospects of rehabilitation". Acting Justice Mathews said she would sentence the pair within the next two weeks, but did not fix a date. Skaf, now 24, was convicted in 2002 on two counts of aggravated sexual intercourse without consent in company, while AA was found guilty of being an accessary before the fact. They were among up to 14 men allegedly involved in the attack. Skaf made NSW legal history when he was sentenced to a record 55 years in jail for leading a string of vicious gang rapes - including the Gosling Park attack - in 2000. But the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal in 2004 quashed Skaf and AA's convictions over the Gosling Park attack and ordered a retrial after it was revealed that, during the trial, two jurors conducted their own investigations at the scene of the rape. Skaf remained behind bars while awaiting retrial, with his sentence for other sex offences having been reduced to a maximum 28 years on appeal. AA's overturned conviction and a subsequent appeal resulted in his jail term for the same series of attacks being reduced from 32 to 19 years. AAP (21-7-2006) Amy Fallon |
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