A record 55-year jail term for a young man convicted of leading a pack of serial gang rapists in Sydney has stirred controversy.
Critics have complained the punishment was worse than that meted out to some of the country's most notorious murderers.
Politicians and community leaders hailed the prison term handed down yesterday against the 20-year-old defendant, which includes a minimum 40 years in jail without parole.
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It was the harshest jail sentence ever imposed for rape in Australia.
Judge Michael Finnane justified the heavy sentence by noting the defendant's lack of remorse for his role in organising the brutal gang rapes of four young women in August 2000.
Lawyers for the man, whose name cannot be released pending sentencing of his younger brother in the same case, lodged an appeal against his sentence today.
Judge Finnane said the brutality of the rapes resembled wartime atrocities, with one woman staked out on the ground by men who laughed and jeered like "a baying pack of wolves" while they took turns raping her.
The rapists - 14 men have been charged so far - were all young Muslims of Lebanese origin and some of their victims testified their assailants taunted them as "Aussie pigs" and bragged about raping them "Leb style".
The case fueled racial tensions, but leaders of the Lebanese community rebuffed suggestions the harsh sentence may have been racially motivated.
"If you commit a crime beyond imaginable human behaviour, you should be put away and the key thrown away," Mr Philip Tizk, president of the Australian-Lebanese Association, said.
However, some experts suggested that massive sentences for other crimes could remove the deterrent impact of murder sentences and even put future rape victims in greater danger of being killed so they could not testify.
This is "a dangerous position because rape victims won't be left alive," sociologist Mr Paul Tabar said.
AFP