A Burundian refugee who came to Australia as a child has been jailed over a terrifying crime spree that included armed robberies, gang fights, assaults and the “barbaric” killing of a family dog in Brisbane.
Aron Nsengiyumva, 22, was sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment in Brisbane District Court on Friday but was given a parole date of September 12 after his lawyers argued he was “zombified’ on Xanax to deal with his traumatic childhood in Africa.
The court heard Nsengiyumva was on bail for an earlier violent rampage when he and a group of friends got into a fight where shots were fired on New Year’s Day in 2023, and then attacked and injured a bouncer at a Fortitude Valley nightclub on February 25, only to be released on bail again, The Courier Mail reported.
In May that year he and a gang of other thugs stormed a Harvey Norman store in Warwick and stole $15,000 worth of Apples products using box cutters and pliers, and smashed a glass door to get out.
The following month he tried to use counterfeit cash to buy a PlayStation on Facebook Marketplace and then pulled out a machete, and punched the seller’s father in the face.
On July 2 Nsengiyumva again tried to use fake money to buy a $2,000 e-scooter, and when he and his co-offenders were chased off they returned with a replica gun and a kitchen knife and broke into the home in Forest Lake.
Nsengiyumva then stabbed the family’s nine-month-old pet dog Nala with such force that her intestines spilled out and she bled to death in front of her horrified owners and their children, who were left traumatised. Two of the family members also suffered stab wounds.
Police described the killing of the dog as “barbaric”, defence lawyer Malcolm Harrison conceded it was a “depraved” act, and the mother of the children in the home said in a victim impact statement she thought her whole family were then going to be murdered in their own living room, 10 News reported.
But Justice Dominique Grigg took into account Nsengiyumva’s early guilty pleas, an apology letter, his relative youth and prospects for reform after Mr Harrison said his client was not longer abusing his prescription drugs and asked for a parole date of May 12.
Justice Grigg said she had to protect the community in ruling that Nsengiyumva, who spent 864 days in pre-sentence custody, should instead be eligible for release four months later.
Header image: Left, Aron Nsengiyumva being arrested (Queensland Police). Right, Nala the family dog (10 News).
