The shocking case of a Chinese national who brutally attacked an Australian baby boy, for ‘revenge on White people’, and subsequently fled the country raises some serious questions.
The so-far unnamed Chinese man poured boiling coffee on nine-month-old Luka, who was on a picnic with his mother in a Brisbane park. The boy was rushed to hospital with severe burns. He has undergone a number of surgeries, as well as skin grafts.
Astonishingly, the attacker was able to flee the country in just hours, evading police. It should be clarified that police have withheld the suspect’s name for fear of jeopardising the investigation and search for the perpetrator, rather than ‘to prevent racial tensions’, as some social media posts have claimed.
But it appears Chinese media have named the man this week.
Speaking about the identity being reported overseas, Police Acting Commissioner Andrew Massingham said on Thursday the manhunt is ongoing.
“No matter what is being reported online, what I can say is our international search for the person that committed that horrendous crime continues,” he told 4BC.
Act Comm Massingham said the social media posts could be a “distraction” from the goals of police they were still determined to track the man down.
“Those things (his identity) always need to remain confidential up until the time we go public with the information... but we6re committed to finding the person,” he said […]
Asked to described the attack on baby Luka compared to what he has witnessed in his career as a police officer, Act Comm Massingham said it was “right up there”.
“That child will have injuries for life. But certainly... one of the most heinous, but also one of the most cowardly (attacks),” he told host Peter Fegan.
But some questions immediately spring to mind:
Firstly, what was a 33-year-old doing in Australia on student and working holiday visas? While he might have been (just) under the maximum age for a working holiday visa when he arrived in Australia in 2019, how was he able to change that to a student visa?
Apparently immigration authorities suspected him of attempting to game the system, as his motive for ‘revenge on white people’ was that he was denied yet another visa.
Secondly, how did he know, as police allege, ‘counter-surveillance measures’, to avoid arrest? And how did he have the wherewithal to flee Australia in just a matter of hours?
Investigators have said the man first fled to a nearby church in Tarragindi, south of Brisbane.
He then caught a rideshare to the city and travelled to Caxton Street.
CCTV showed the man dressed in shorts, a blue check shirt, black hat and black shoes.
It is understood he travelled to Sydney the next day and then boarded a flight overseas […]
Police in Queensland only managed to identify him themselves after he’d already fled the country, with an international arrest warrant out for his arrest.
Curiously, too, police state that “the man had been in Australia under a visa and had addresses ‘across the eastern seaboard’ but not Queensland”.
The big question, for Luka’s parents especially, is whether or not the vicious attacker will be returned to Australia to face justice.
But with her baby’s alleged attacker still on the run, Luka’s mother has now asked: “Where is he now?”
“Is he in jail now that the media knows who he is over there? Is he just walking the streets?” the mother asked 9News.
His father added: “We just want him to be punished, here or there, we just want him to be punished.”
Let’s hope Queensland is tougher on Chinese nationals than Victoria.
A man who killed two sex workers in the space of 24 hours has struck a deal with Victorian prosecutors, allowing him to dodge a murder conviction.
Instead, Xiaozheng Lin will be jailed for the lesser charge of manslaughter over the deaths of Yuqi Luo, 31, and Hyun Sook Jeon, 51, in late 2022.
Lin, a 24-year-old Chinese national, went to Ms Luo's Melbourne CBD apartment on La Trobe Street early on December 27, 2022 and had sex with her, before assaulting and strangling the woman to death.
The Supreme Court of Victoria heard he left her naked body in the apartment and stole $7,000 cash, handbags and Ms Luo's phone […]
The court heard Lin used the women's bank cards to pay his phone bill and to try and clear debts from his sports betting account […]
Lin was due to face a double-murder trial but prosecutors agreed to his offer to plead guilty to manslaughter in July this year, defence barrister Paul Smallwood said.
Lin faced 25 years to life for murder. Now, he’ll almost certainly serve both lesser charges and be out of prison in less than 10 years, if sentencing trends in Victoria are any guide.
