A Sudanese refugee will spend just two years behind bars for the brutal rape of a young woman in Queensland after a judge called him a “wonderful young man”.
Thon Monyluke Deng Angui, 24, was on February 5 found guilty by a Toowoomba District Court jury of raping his victim, 20, near Queens Park in June 2024 after meeting her for the first time on a nightclub dancefloor.
Angui led her to an embankment, ripped her clothes off and brutally raped her as she begged him to stop, and in a victim impact statement the woman said she was still haunted by the attack almost two years on, saying her life had been “ripped apart”, The Chronicle reported.
Defence barrister Frank Martin asked the court to take into account during sentencing Angui’s childhood in Sudan, and said his client came to Australia at age 15 with no English language skills and a minimal amount of formal education, but graduated high school as a prefect and gained citizenship in 2024.
“He had an early childhood marked by extreme hardship, both his parents died when he was still a child,” Mr Martin said, adding Angui had no criminal record and a strong work history.
“The village that he grew up in was remote and extremely under-resourced, food insecurity was common. While he was not directly involved in combat, he was exposed to war conditions from a young age.”
Judge Dzenita Balić, a Bosnian refugee herself, told the court she had weighed up Angui’s offending with the trauma of his childhood, saying “this is a very difficult sentence for me”.
“On one hand we have this wonderful young man with a very bright future who has worked very hard to get to where he is, considering his background,” she said.
“But on the other hand we have a very traumatised young woman, also, who has been taken advantage of … the offence of rape is one of the most serious offences in the criminal code.”
She sentenced Angui to five years’ imprisonment to be suspended after two years in custody, for a period of five years.
Header image: Left, Thon Angui (Instagram). Right, Judge Dzenita Balić (QLS).
