Australia: Child-molester out in a year

A rapist and kidnapper let out of jail by a sentencing technicality and later found beside a busy highway with a knife, sawn-off rifle and horror movie mask will be on the streets yet again in just a year.

Neo-nazi Whyatt William Azaparti, 36, kidnapped two teenage girls in March 2003. He fed them alcohol and drugs and raped the 13-year-old while her 14-year-old friend slept. He was jailed for four years and nine months but allowed out because authorities took into account time he served while waiting for his trial and sentence.

Azaparti was released on February 10 this year. Three months later he was picked up almost by chance, when police noticed a man asleep in his car beside the Ipswich Motorway. When they went to check the car they found a knife on the passenger seat. The sleeping man - Azaparti - was restrained and a search found a sawn-off gun near the driver's seat, a mask similar to the one featured in the Scream movies and four Clipseal bags of marijuana.

Yesterday he was sent back to jail but again the court opted to give him the opportunity to walk out of prison before completion of his original sentence. Justice Margaret Wilson yesterday ordered Azaparti to serve 12 months of the remaining four years and 167 days on his sentence, concurrent with a four-month term imposed on June 23 by the Ipswich Magistrate's Court for possessing the items found in the car.

Defence barrister Geoff Seaholme said Azaparti had been driving to Redbank Plains to dump the weapons in local lakes, and the drugs were to help him cope with pain from injuries sustained in a 1988 car accident. Azaparti maintained the gun had been in his car since he was arrested for the 2003 rape.

Breaches of suspended sentences can be punished by requiring the accused to serve the whole or part of the remaining sentence, or extending the operational period.

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