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3 Years in the slammer for Friend of Palestine who abused Jews
A PERTH man who was jailed for racial hatred after posting a video on the internet showing him calling a Jewish man a "racist, homicidal maniac" has had his appeal against his conviction dismissed.Brendan Lee O'Connell was sentenced to three years imprisonment after a District Court jury found him guilty of six offences. He was the first person to be jailed under WA's racial vilification laws. The charges related to a verbal altercation he had with two Jewish men, Stanley Keyser and Timothy Peach, in May 2009 at a South Perth IGA supermarket, where a Friends of Palestine group was holding a protest. O'Connell appealed against his conviction, saying the sentencing judge erred in law and the sentences imposed were manifestly excessive. In a judgement handed down today in the Supreme Court's Court of Appeal, three appeal judges dismissed the appeal against conviction. "I accept that the total effective sentence imposed upon the appellant of three years was high," Justice Robert Mazza wrote in the decision. "However, I do not think it was so high as to be unjust or unreasonable." Posted by: phil_b 2012-05-04 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=344025 |