Five members of an African gang have been jailed over a bloody street brawl with a rival group of thugs in western Sydney that left an Australian teenager dead and five other youths with knife wounds.
Oliver Coleman, 19, died after being stabbed in the heart near his home in Blacktown during the clash between the MOB (Money Over Bitches) and QSB (Queen Street Boys) gangs in September 2021 where a machete, kitchen knives, a zombie knife and golf clubs were wielded by the warring groups.
His five killers – Panashe Karise, 25, Ibrahima Diallo, 23, and three other males who were minors at the time of the attack and can only be known by the pseudonyms AD, AG and YA, were sentenced in the NSW Supreme Court last Friday to between six and 10 years’ jail each.
Karise (from Zimbabwe), Diallo (from Guinea-Bissau), AD and AG (both refugees from Sierra Leone) were found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter during a trial earlier this year, after which YA (whose Iraqi parents fled the Saddam Hussein regime) pleaded guilty to manslaughter ahead of his own separate trial.
The first four were also found guilty of two counts of attempted murder and one count of wounding with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm, and YA pleaded guilty to two counts of the latter charge.
Justice Peter Hamill noted in his judgement that AD, who fatally stabbed Mr Coleman, was referring to his victim when he said in a text message that his group should attack “the White kid first”, but said he “put little store” in the remark as the evidence showed that Mr Coleman had lunged at him with a large zombie knife.
Mr Coleman’s brother EC suffered three serious stab wounds, one of which punctured his lung, and another QSB member called EO was stabbed ten times during the fight and almost died of massive blood loss at the scene.
AD was stabbed in the forearm, Karise suffered a deep cut to his left triceps and a superficial laceration to his right bicep, while AG suffered a deep knife wound to his left thumb.
Justice Hamill found that the two gangs were drill rap music rivals embroiled in a social media dispute that led to the MOB members turning up at Mr Coleman’s house in balaclavas armed with at least six knives between them and goading him to come outside.
The QSB group, joined by Mr Coleman’s father Lee Coleman, then charged out brandishing weapons and attacked the MOB group, who retreated and were pursued down the street where a rolling brawl unfolded where the rival gang members stabbed, punched, kicked, and hit each other with golf clubs and threw pot plants.
After Mr Coleman was stabbed the QSB group “had the upper hand in the violent melee and AD was crying out for help and under serious attack”, Justice Hamill found, whereupon Karise inflicted multiple stab wounds on EO “in a frenzy” and EC was also stabbed.
YA was not charged with the attempted murders of EO and EC because although he acknowledged being a part of the joint criminal enterprise and remained responsible he was “probably hiding” by that time and was not in the vicinity.
In sentencing Justice Hamill took into account the killers’ troubled and dysfunctional childhoods, noting that AD was “subjected to racism and became alienated” after arriving in Australia, and that AG’s family experienced “racial profiling and marginalisation”.
He found that on coming to Australia Diallo “struggled to adapt culturally and faced language barriers, racism and social isolation” and “often responded to racist taunts by fighting”, which led to suspensions and an expulsion from school in Year 7.
Karise, Dialla, AG and AD all had histories of drug use and criminal records, while YA is still facing a charge of affray from a June 2021 incident which he will defend in court in January. Justice Hamill noted that YA was “clearly in possession of a knife” when arrested, but had to be treated as a person with no prior convictions.
AD was sentenced to eight years’ jail with five-year non-parole period to be served as a juvenile offender until he turns 21.
Karise was sentenced to 10 years including 7.5 years without parole, and Diallo was given a 7.5-year sentence with five years’ non-parole.
AG was sentenced to 6.5 years’ in a juvenile detention institution until age 21 with a four-year non-parole period, and YA was sentenced to six years and nine months in jail with a non-parole period of four years and three months, also to be served in a juvenile facility until 21.
Header image: Left, Oliver Coleman (Instagram). Right, a man is arrested after the brawl (Nine News)
