A violent African criminal who was spared deportation and released from immigration detention has faced court accused of a brutal bashing that left a man fighting for life in Melbourne.
Zimbabwean immigrant Lominja Friday Yokoju, 43, who is among hundreds of violent criminals set free by Labor after a controversial court ruling, appeared in Melbourne Magistrate’s Court on Monday charged with intentionally cause serious injury.
Police allege Yokoju approached a 62-year-old man in the crime-ravaged suburb of Footscray at 10am on Sunday, struck him and stomped on his head while he was on the ground near the intersection on Nicholson and Paisley Streets.
A witness told The Age Australian Border Force officers on their way to update Yokoju’s ankle bracelet turned up to see the alleged attack in progress.
“The other guy kept stomping on the victim’s face and didn’t stop until the Australian Border Force happened to pass by and intervened,” the witness said.
The older was was taken to hospital with critical injuries, and the prosecutor told the court on Monday he “is yet to stabilise on life support, and is unlikely to survive the injuries”, 7 News reported.
Yokoju, who was on bail at the time of the alleged attack and is understood to be on a bridging visa, laughed as he entered the dock in court, said “this is a joke to me”, and yelled out a number of times before his lawyer requested an urgent psychiatric assessment.
He did not apply for bail, and will return to court on October 20.
Following his release from Yongah Hill Detention Centre in Perth in November 2023 after the High Court ruled that a “stateless” Rohingya child rapist could not be held in indefinite detention, Yokoju claimed he was a victim of discrimination and did not commit the domestic violence offence he was locked up for.
“The racism has to stop,” he told The West Australian.
“It’s not supposed to happen, let it go. I did my time — seven times over.
“I’ve seen White people go to prison for drugs, spend a few months there and then get out. Everybody else goes to hell.”
Yokoju, who spent six years in detention after serving a sentence of longer than one year, said he just wanted to work and live his life, but he was later charged with breaching his ankle monitoring and curfew conditions.
Those charges were dropped in November last year after another High Court ruling that the conditions were unconstitutional, the Herald Sun reported.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke refused to comment on Yokoju’s case, but Coalition spokesman Andrew Hastie said the alleged attack was a “preventable tragedy” and the government had not applied to keep a single freed detainee behind bars despite their violent histories.
“And now, we have an innocent person gravely injured by someone who [allegedly] should have been deported by the Albanese government,” Mr Hastie said.
“What is Tony Burke doing? Why didn’t he exercise preventative detention powers? Why is he so passive in protecting our community? These questions need to be answered by the Home Affairs Minister.”
Header image: Left, Lominja Friday Yokoju (Facebook). Right, the 62-year-old man being treated by paramedics (7 News).
