Liep Gony (/ljep goŋ/) was a Sudanese Australian man who was murdered on the night of 26 September 2007, near Noble Park railway station in the Melbourne suburb of Noble Park.
His killers were Clinton David Rintoull and Dylan Giuseppe Sabatino, both white Australians, who were unknown to Gony and targeted him because of his skin colour. During the unprovoked assault, the pair beat Gony with metal poles, leading to a fatal head injury. Before the attack, Rintoull had sprayed racist graffiti in various locations, used violent and racist language and expressed his intention to kill a black man. Despite this, following the men's convictions, presiding judge Justice Elizabeth Curran ruled that the killers' actions had been motivated "by a complex set of factors", and as such, racial motivation would not be considered an aggravating factor.
The murder was a key episode in the development of the African gangs moral panic in Australia, as initial reports from police, politicians, and the press suggested Gony had been murdered as part of "African gang violence". Immigration minister Kevin Andrews stated in response to the murder that "Some groups of immigrants aren't settling and adjusting into the Australian life as quickly as we would hope." Although it quickly emerged that Gony had been murdered by white Australians, African gang discourse continued in the media, culminating with the Liberal National government's decision to reduce the number of humanitarian visas available to people from Sudan.
Liep Gony
Liep Gony was a resettled refugee who had become an Australian citizen after arriving in the country as an 11-year-old. He was nineteen at the time of his death.
His mother, Martha Ojulo, had fled South Sudan, then part of Sudan, after her relatives were tortured during the civil war. The family lived in refugee camps in Ethiopia for a period, where one of Liep's siblings died in a house fire. Liep was one of five brothers and sisters who arrived in Australia with his grandmother in 1999. He initially lived in Hobart before moving to Victoria in 2001. He was reunited with his mother in 2003 when she was resettled in Australia. At the time of his death, Gony had been accepted into a graphic design course.
At a 2018 memorial for Gony, his cousin told the congregation that "Liep showed respect and love to people of all ages, ethnicity and sexual orientations," and reminisced about how he would speak passionately about politics, music and racism in Australia and the world. His mother described him as "a good son who was thoughtful and caring".
Murder
Fatal attack
The fatal attack was committed by 22-year-old Clinton Rintoull and 19-year-old Dylan Sabatino on the night of 26 September 2007 at around 11 o'clock, near Noble Park train station. Gony was beaten severely with two metal poles and suffered extensive head injuries, from which he would later die. He was selected randomly as a victim due to his being a Sudanese Australian, a group against which Rintoull had shown racist behaviour in the days leading up to the assault.
Perpetrators' activities prior to the murder
At the time of the murder, Gony's killers were staying at a house rented by Rintoull's ex-girlfriend in Briggs Crescent, Noble Park. The men were Victorians, but had arrived at the address on 14 September 2007 after 11 months of living out of state.
In the days leading up to the murder, Rintoull made frequent negative references to the Sudanese community and black people in general. On Sunday, 23 September, Rintoull made an anonymous call to the police, claiming he had been chased and threatened by a group of Sudanese youths. On this call, Rintoull stated that if the police did not do something about the Sudanese in the area, he would. In the following days, Rintoull showed his ex-girlfriend a local newspaper story headlined "Bronx fear", which complained about "recalcitrant migrants". He stated to her that the Sudanese people were "turning the local area into the Bronx".
On the evening of 26 September, Rintoull and Sabatino were drinking in the house at Briggs Crescent. Rintoull was also smoking cannabis. Rintoull's ex-girlfriend had been served an eviction notice that morning, and that evening the men, angered by the eviction, began to punch holes in the walls and spray-paint graffiti around the property. Among the graffiti was the phrase "fuck da niggas".
At around 10 p.m., Rintoull was observed outside the house by neighbours carrying a metal pole. A neighbour, walking his dog, saw Rintoull standing in the middle of the road and heard him shout, “These blacks are turning the town into the Bronx. I am going to take my town back, I’m looking to kill the blacks.” Sabatino's girlfriend later heard him say, "I guess I’ll go and take my anger out on some niggers." Rintoull then left the house, and his ex-girlfriend asked Sabatino to follow him to ensure he was alright.
The bashing of Liep Gony
Liep Gony had spent the evening in the area of Noble Park station, drinking with friends. Gony's cousin, Lock Fouch, testified that he last saw him at 21:45, sitting alone near the railway station in a very inebriated condition.
Some time before 22:40, Gony was approached by Sabatino and Rintoull, who were both carrying metal poles. At their trial, the pair asserted that Gony was in the company of another African man, who ran away when they approached. However, no evidence supporting this was presented. The pair then subjected Gony to a brutal beating using the metal poles and their hands and feet. Rintoull hit Gony on the head around 15 times with the pole, and several times on the body. Sabatino hit Gony with the pole around 5 times. The trial judge stated that, due to the amount of alcohol in his system, the victim would have been incapable of resisting the attack in any way.
The killers then returned home, leaving Gony unconscious on the floor. They had been outside the house for around 15 minutes.
Injuries sustained by the victim
Liep Gony sustained head injuries that would prove fatal during the assault. The trial judge, in her summing up of the case, stated that Gony had suffered multiple petechial haemorrhages, subarachnoid haemorrhage, a commuted fracture of the distal left ulna, a fractured left nasal bone, a right acute subdural haematoma, a fractured left base of the skull, the depressed occipital bone fracture, a fracture of the left orbital floor, and occipital scalp lacerations and forearm lacerations.
Following his death, an autopsy was conducted, which identified the specific cause of death as a "depressed fracture of the rear left side of the skull."
Events following the attack
Discovery and hospitalisation of Liep Gony
Seriously injured but still alive, Liep Gony was discovered by a passing motorist, who recognised him as an acquaintance, at 10:40. The motorist ran to a nearby property, from where an ambulance was called, which arrived 18 minutes after Gony had been found. Gony's mother had been advised he was in Noble Park, though she was unaware of the attack, and arrived at the scene accompanied by Gony's sister as he was being put into the ambulance. One of Gony's brothers was also present.
Gony was transported to Alfred Hospital, where he was operated on urgently to alleviate the pressure on his brain and placed on life support. Over the next day, his condition worsened, and the medical staff judged that no recovery was possible. He was removed from life support at 10:40 on Thursday, 27 September, and died within minutes.
Actions of the perpetrators following the attack
According to the testimony of Sabatino's girlfriend, immediately following the attack, the two men returned home and washed the poles, which were now bent. She would also testify that Rintoull said, "I bashed a nigger, and I think he’s dead." Rintoull's ex-girlfriend would also tell police that he confessed to the attack and had hidden the poles in her yard. Rintoull also confessed to his ex-girlfriend's sister in a telephone call, saying he thought Gony was one of the men he claimed had chased him a few days earlier. The next day, Rintoull, Sabatino, his girlfriend, and Rintoull's ex-girlfriend fled by coach to Adelaide.
By Friday the 28th, the police had established that the four were suspects and had obtained warrants for telephone intercepts. The intercepts revealed the suspects discussing aspects of the murder with family members, and led to their arrest in South Australia on 30 September. In custody, Sabatino and Rintoull admitted responsibility for the attack to the police.
Trial and appeal
The initial trial hearings occurred on 30 September and 1 October 2009 at the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne, with Justice Elizabeth Curtain presiding. At these proceedings, Rintoull pleaded guilty to murder and intentionally damaging property, while Sabatino pleaded guilty to manslaughter and intentionally damaging property. The men were sentenced on 18 December 2009. Rintoull was given 20 years imprisonment, with a 16-year minimum tariff. Sabatino was sentenced to 10 years, with a 6-year minimum. The men's sentences took into consideration their confessions, remorse, guilty pleas, lack of criminal records, and difficult backgrounds.
Controversy over racial motivation
The sentencing has provoked press and academic controversy, as well as criticism from Gony's family, as Justice Curtain ruled that racial motivation was not an aggravating factor in the murder, and as such would not lead to an increased sentence as mandated by law. Her reasoning for this decision was based on evidence that Rintoull had motives other than simple racial prejudice, and her view that it could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that "racism per se was a motive for the attack." Justice Curtain recognised that Rintoull had frequently used racist language, specifically the word "nigger", and expressed a desire to kill a black man and "take his town back". However, Curtain concluded that the initial motivation for the killing was an alleged incident where Rintoull had been chased by a "gang" of black men. This was, in Justice Curtain's opinion, combined with Rintoull's concerns about the lawlessness he perceived as arising from the congregation of Sudanese men around Noble Park railway station, and the newspaper article he had read entitled "Bronx Fear", to create a "complex set of motives". The judge also argued that Rintoull's kindness to a homeless Sudanese boy several days before the attack suggested a lack of racial motivation.
Curtain's decision was criticised by Australian legal scholars Mason and Dyer on the grounds that, in Australian law, there is no requirement that racial animosity be the sole motivation for the crime for more serious penalties to be warranted. Furthermore, in summing up, Curtain ruled that Rintoull and Sabatino's aggression was directed towards the young Sudanese men who had allegedly chased Rintoull "irrespective of their race", which again met with Mason and Dyer's criticism. In their view, this statement lacked a basis in fact, as the premeditation, evidence of prejudice before the attack, and random selection of a victim demonstrated a clear decision to commit a crime against Gony based solely on his ethnicity.
The judge had initially decided to bar the press from publishing photos of the two men and their racist vandalism before the killing, because this may lead to violence towards the pair inside prison. The Herald Sun newspaper requested that Justice Curtain lift this ban, which occurred in February 2010. Upon lifting the ban, Curtain stated, "If release and publication of the photographs will lead to persons forming an opinion that the killing was racially motivated, so be it. People are entitled to their views even if formed on a basis different from the material placed before the sentencing judge."