The family of a promising young basketball player who was stabbed to death in a random attack have called for his killers to face “nothing but justice”.
Alier Riak, 23, was celebrating his recruitment to the Darwin Salties with friends and family in Melbourne when his life was tragically cut short on March 13, 2022.
Raised in Perth after his family fled war-torn Sudan, Mr Riak returned to Australia in 2021 after a full sports scholarship playing basketball in the United States where he got a degree.
Members of Mr Riak’s family and community appeared in the Victorian Supreme Court on Wednesday as brothers Aron Gebregiorgis, 24, and Teamrat Kassa, 21, faced a presentence hearing for his murder.
Kassa has also pleaded guilty to causing injury recklessly to Mr Riak’s elder brother Kuol Riak.
Prosecutor Neill Hutton told the court Mr Riak and his brother, Kuol Riak, had been out celebrating his birthday with friends and family at the Watermark Hotel in Docklands.
After a few drinks and a night spent dancing, the group left the venue as it closed.
Outside in the parking lot a scuffle broke out with another group, after several men joined in on “birthday punches” for Mr Riak but were “unfriendly”, Mr Hutton said.
A short time later the group was organising transport home, when six men approached and began to attack Kuol Riak.
Alier set out to defend his brother as Gebregiorgis and Kassa turned their attention to him, chasing him into a nearby park.
He was stabbed nine times, with CCTV showing each man delivered “at least one” blow, Mr Hutton told the court.
“Alier was stabbed when he tried to flee from both accused after attempting to rescue his own brother,” he said.
He died on the way to hospital while Kuol Riak, who was stabbed four times himself, survived.
As five minutes of CCTV and phone footage collated of the attack was played to the court, Mr Riak’s mother Elizabeth Malek burst out sobbing.
Gebregiorgis watched the video while his younger brother Kassa held his head low.
Ms Malek told the court her son was a kind, loving and respectful boy named after his great grandfather.
“I cannot comprehend how someone would take a knife and end my son’s life. Alier was never a violent person,” she said.
“Our family, once so happy and close knit, has been shattered by this loss.”
His father, James Riak, said his son had been “destined for greatness” and had travelled to Melbourne to train ahead of his NBL1 debut.
He said Alier had been an inspiration for his younger siblings and would regularly return to his high school. John Septemus Roe in Mirrabooka, to mentor the basketballers.
Kuol Riak told the court the “senseless violence” that left him in hospital and his brother dead had been mentally tough to accept.
“We hope the court will come to a decision that gives nothing but justice to our brother,” he said.
Leaders of Western Australia’s South Sudanese community said Mr Riak was a “trailblazer” and role model to many in the community, with young men who hoped to be like him having “lost hope in life”.
“This was an assault on the dreams of any young athlete who looked up to Alier,” one statement read.
Lawyers acting for both Gebregiorgis and Kassa told the court the brothers had been raised in a good home but had drifted into antisocial peer groups and drug use in their teen years.
Both called on Justice John Champion to hand down a sentence that would give them hope for a life after prison.
Kassa, barrister Ashley Haphen said, had little memory of the events as he had consumed Xanax and alcohol and finds it “hard to fathom why he did what he did”.
Sam Norton, for Gebregiorgis, told the court he would not try to rationalise the “senseless violence” but said his client was not “beyond redemption”.
Each had written a letter of remorse to the Riak family, the court was told.
Justice Champion told the court the offending was a “minute of madness” that had destroyed two families.
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