Crime & Justice

Australia investigates hate crimes against LGBTI from 1970 to 2010

Sydney, Australia, Nov 2 (EFE).- A special commission held Wednesday in Australia its first public hearing to investigate alleged hate crime murders perpetrated against LGBTI people between 1970 and 2010 in the state of New South Wales, the most populous of Australia.

“The special commission is the first of its kind in the world” and its investigations will be “completely independent,” said Peter Gray, assistant lawyer for the Special Commission for the Investigation of the Crimes of Hate against the LGBTI community.

The commission, which is due to deliver its final report on Jun. 30, 2023, is the product of the recommendations of a New South Wales parliamentary committee based on two reports dating from 2018, on crimes against members of the LGBTI community.

The investigations will focus on the “manner and causes of all 88 unsolved cases of death or alleged deaths potentially motivated by a hate bias towards homosexuals,” added the assistant lawyer, detailing the terms of reference of the work of the commission led by Judge John Sackar.

It is considered that more than 20 of these crimes, most of them committed between the decades of 1970 to 1990, have not yet been solved by the police.

“All of the deaths covered by this investigation, many of them lonely and terrifying, were of people whose lives were tragically cut short,” Gray said.

The 2018 Parrabell report, prepared by the New South Wales Police and which is one of the benchmarks of the current commission, said “it is clear and beyond any doubt that the levels of violence perpetrated particularly against gay men was elevated, extreme and often brutal.”

“On behalf of the New South Wales Police Force, I admit that it is an absolute requirement that we never let history repeat itself,” said Deputy Commissioner Tony Crandell, who is in charge of sexuality, gender diversity and intersex affairs for the force. EFE

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