A baby killer who won $3000 compensation last year because he was forced to eat vegetables instead of halal meat in jail now wants more money.
Raymond Akhtar Ali, who is serving a life sentence for chopping up his newborn baby, has appealed for the payout to be doubled to $6000.
But the State Government also has appealed against the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal compensation decision, hoping to stop Ali getting any money.
“I’m disgusted,” Helen Blackwell, the grandmother of murdered baby Chahleen, said yesterday after being told of Ali’s bid to double his money.
After the tribunal decision in August, Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie described Ali as a “monster” and declared the Government would appeal.
Former butcher Ali was fed a vegetarian diet in Maryborough Correctional Centre for four months, instead of specially prepared halal meat in accordance with his religious requirements.
Halal food needs to be blessed, slaughtered, cooked and stored according to strict rules.
QCAT member Ann Fitzpatrick found Ali, then 60, a Muslim, had been discriminated against on the basis of his religion and ordered the State Government to pay $3000 compensation.
Ali had been forced to eat vegetarian food from September 24, 2008 to January 22, 2009, after being incorrectly told halal food was not available, Ms Fitzpatrick found.
“The amount of $3000 awarded as compensation is inadequate,” Ali’s appeal application says. He has asked for the compensation to be increased to $6000.
Ali claims the tribunal member erred in finding the discrimination resulted from a mistake, claiming it was really due to “neglect and incompetence” at the jail.
The State Government claims there was no religious discrimination, the $3000 compensation was “unreasonable” and should be set aside and Ali’s discrimination complaint dismissed.
The Government says the tribunal member erred in fact by finding Ali was told no halal meals were available to him and he therefore requested vegetarian meals.
The Government says a “procedural error” on a prison medical form said Ali should be given vegetarian food in lieu of “Moslem Halal” meals, the state application says.
It said it triggered a chain of events that led to Ali being given a vegetarian “medical diet” until January 22, 2009, when he requested a halal diet.
Legal representatives for Ali and the Government have to provide their appeal material by February 17 and a decision will be made without a hearing.
In 2000 Ali was found guilty of the gruesome 1998 murder of his newborn daughter while the baby’s mother, Amanda Blackwell, 22, was found guilty of manslaughter.
Blackwell, who had worked in Ali’s halal butcher shop, became the married Ali’s virtual “sex slave” and after she secretly gave birth at a Logan Village property Ali killed the baby.
The baby girl suffered severe fractures, and after her death her right leg was severed, she had been cut in half and her reproductive organs removed.
Last year the girl’s grandmother said she had lost her only granddaughter and Ali should “rot in hell” and receive nothing.