An African thug who was spared a conviction for his role in a horrific fatal stabbing has been killed in a drive-by shooting in Melbourne’s CBD.
Violent Sudanese-born criminal Kwar Ater, 26, was gunned down on Elizabeth street just before 4am on Sunday and died a short time after being dumped at hospital in Parkville by two unknown males.
Ater was originally charged with murdering another African, Kose Kose, who was killed during a frenzied knife attack in October 2023, but the murder charge was dropped and he pleaded guilty to affray and committing an indictable offence while out on bail.
The killing of Mr Kose also involved Timothy Leek, who was hacked to death by a group of 10 machete-wielding African thugs outside a Melbourne shopping centre in March and was linked to the city’s African gang wars.
Before the killing of Mr Kose, Ater had appeared in an ABC News article where he complained about being racially profiled as an African gang member, and accused then-Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton of fuelling discrimination by talking about African crime.
Supreme Court Justice Rita Incerti found in sentencing Ater in February last year that he had punched Mr Kose in the head before grabbing him and holding him as he was stabbed twice in the chest and three times in the back by another Sudanese thug.
But she noted that Ater then stood back from the fighting, and that CCTV did not show him wielding a knife during the brawl, which involved eight African males and left three of them with stab wounds.
The court heard that Ater also had a record of serious criminal offending as a minor, but Judge Incerti found he had good prospects of rehabilitation, a low risk of re-offending, and showed genuine remorse, and took into account 313 days spent in custody after being charged.
She sentenced him to a six-month Community Corrections Order and ordered that the charge be dismissed and no conviction recorded.
No arrested have been made over Ater’s death.
Header image: Left, Kwar Ater (Facebook). Right, the scene of the shooting (supplied).
