VICTIM’S SHOCK AT RAPIST’S PAROLE

GEELONG’S Megs McLean was in shock last night after New Zealand authorities decided to free the brutal rapist who attacked her in that country 15 years ago.

The New Zealand Parole Board yesterday announced Akeel Hassan Abbas Al Baiiaty would be released from jail in six weeks and deported to Iraq, where he plans to marry his fiancee.

“I’m absolutely hurt and gutted. No words can explain the pain I feel,” Ms McLean told the Geelong Advertiser last night. “It’s brought up all my memories of him being so violent to me … I’m on edge again. I haven’t felt like this for years.

“I’ve cried so much. It’s impacted my health. It’s lucky I have good people around me.”

The Mount Duneed mother-ofthree went public in March about the horrifying ordeal, revealing she’d fought Al Baiiaty’s bids for freedom since he attacked her in Wellington in 2005.

The shockingly violent rape made national headlines in New Zealand, fuelled by the fact the defendant had been on parole just two months at the time and denied her allegations, forcing her to endure a harrowing trial.

His parole followed nine years in jail for rapes in the mid-90s. But the Kiwi authorities had failed to revoke his citizenship after that conviction, and, on parole, he moved into a hostel with unsuspecting students, including Ms McLean, a 20-year-old Australian.

Now, with a fiancée waiting for him in Iraq and a brother living in Australia, the man will be released and immediately deported on October 14.

Parole board chairman Sir Ron Young informed Ms Mclean of that decision yesterday, saying he was satisfied the rapist was “no longer an undue risk”. “Al Baiiaty has completed