‘Ex-child soldier’ paroled
Man pleads guilty to 42 offences
A FORMER Liberian child soldier has told a magistrate he wants to “stop drinking and be a good father” after the disturbing details of his sixmonth crime spree across the state’s south-east were revealed in court yesterday.
The Toowoomba Magistrates Court heard Alhaji Kanneh, 29, threatened to kill homeless care workers and called them “white dogs”, flashed his penis to and spat at patrons at The Cube Hotel during an altercation and forced a woman’s hand to his crotch during a spate of crimes committed from Miles to the Gold Coast last year.
Kanneh’s solicitor Alysha Jacobsen, of Condon Charles Lawyers, told the court her client had suffered a great “culture shock” when he arrived in Southport as a refugee in 2007.
“When he was five-yearsold, he was taken away from his family and forced to join the army as a child soldier,” Ms Jacobsen said.
“He had never been in a big city before.”
Among the 42 charges Kanneh pleaded guilty to were numerous public nuisance offences relating to him threatening to kill staff at a CentreLink office and his involvement in a fight in the Gold Coast’s Cavill Mall.
Police prosecutor Senior Constable Christie Mahoney said the most serious charge he was facing was the common assault of a woman at a Toowoomba homeless care facility, who rejected his advances.
“(The victim) heard a knock at the door and he was standing there, he’s attempted to make a romantic advance toward her and she rejected that,” Snr Cnst Mahoney said.
“He approached her again and offered to shake her hand. She accepted the offer but upon doing so he tightened his grip, struggled with her while she was attempting to pull away and he has attempted to pull her hand toward his crotch.”
After being forced out of the premises, he told staff “you’re going to die white dogs I’m going to bury you”.
In a letter tendered to Acting Magistrate Roger Stark, Kanneh said he wanted to “teach his children and others to be good and not take the same path he took”.
Noting the severity of his assault on the woman in Toowoomba, Acting Magistrate Stark ordered that Kanneh serve a head sentence of nine months on parole and be released immediately.
“You’re a person who has had a very unsettling upbringing to say the least having been a child soldier in another country and gone through a refugee camp,” Acting Magistrate Stark said.