Flying the courthouse flag at half-mast

‘The ladder of the law has no top and no bottom.‘ – Bob Dylan in Lonesome death of Hattie Caroll.
‘Death, death to the IDF.’ – Bob Vylan at Glastonbury.
“What was the name for the protest? Does anyone know? What, kill the Jews like they did in Bondi.” – uninformed comment by Wynnum Magistrate Zachary Sarra conflating blocking the driveway of Ferra Engineering with anti-semitism.

A bizarre five hours in court. His honour, Zachary Sarra, presiding. Firstly, Sam Capel, the Duty Lawyer, was taking instructions in interview room number two. Guilty pleas all round. Two women lawyers handled over 40 defence cases in the space of five hours. Also, in attendance was one police officer prosecuting and a representative of the prison probation system.

Magistrate’s Sarra’s own home spun version of a bail undertaking is that it is a sacred promise by the defendant to turn up and not to re-offend. He praised a mute defendant for her dignity and knowledge of the court process. He claimed that her responses were better than the lawyers present

Most of the cases were adjourned inside this mad spinning wheel called Wynuum Magistrate’s Court. His honour spent much of the morning lamenting the state of affairs in Wynuum, in the law, in society at large. At one point, Mr Sarra SM called for all politicians to be shipped to places where conflict really was, where people kill each other, over there, implying Palestine. He corrected himself and said people like the defendant have brought their violence here referring to the Bondi massacre that occurred on Sunday. He pointed to faults in the criminal justice system and spent the rest of the time lecturing defendants on a wide range of topics.

I felt that I was in a Wynnum takeaway rather than a courtroom. Opinions went flying right and left. Drug offenders were warned that they were going to end up in the cemetery. What does I C E stand for? yelled Magistrate Sarra? Incarceration Cemetery End was the theme of his homily from the bench. One Hundred and thirty-three road fatalities in the recent period were placed like a collar around the neck of each offender. As if they alone bore the burden of guilt. He would then send them away with the imperative, stay out of trouble!

We are coming into the black period shouted Zach drawing on the iconic song “Back to Black” performed by the late Amy Winehouse. This was not a Harper Lee novel, it is downtown Wynnum only a few kilometres from the weapons factory. Ferra Engineering on 344 New Cleveland Road, Tingalpa supplies Israel with weapons parts backed by government subsidies.

The accused knew more about the facts of their cases than lawyer or prosecutor. The magistrate simply made up his own facts.

The atmosphere in the courtroom was stifling and intense. Each defendant in turn was threatened with jail. You’ll be in the dock next time was constant refrain from the bench. But Wynuum is ICE Central … as least according to the police it is. And they all drug drive. No excuses here for workers who are driving trucks dog tired.

Women lawyers knew not to answer each new tirade from Judge Sarra especially as the morning wore on and he got grumpier and grumpier.

The lawyers darted from one side of the bar table to the other, absorbed in process and files. Instinctively, defendants knew not to challenge. Or perhaps they should?

At 1:30 p.m. after a wait of four and a half hours, our case came on, the blockade of the weapons factory at Tingalpa.

Subhi, a Palestinian man, stood at the bar table accused of using a dangerous attachment device to block a weapons factory that sends dangerous attachment devices to Israel so F-35s could bomb children in Gaza.

It was only then that Magistrate Zachary Sarra finally hit his straps, accusing the defendant of bringing violence and mayhem to this country and of ignoring the rights of the ‘Australian community‘. Magistrate Sarra opined of workers being entitled to turn up for work and get paid without the nuisance of protesters at their front gate. Never mind that the factory on the charge sheet in front of him was Ferra Engineering, a weapons factory!

Wynuum police, in their QP9 document read out by the prosecutor, charaterised the blockade as a ‘Free Palestine protest’. magistrate Sarra claimed that neither the workers nor community had any knowledge of what was going on and that the protest served no purpose. “You have the right to protest but not to break the law” he shouted at the Palestinian. You have no right to be here (in this country)if this is what you’re going to do … I’m sick to death of this court being used as a platform.

Another defendant said Sarra had heard many of the climate change protesters trials. They were brought before him from the coal port nearby. He doesn’t understand climate change, she said.

In anger the irate judge begans citing the deaths in Bondi as justification for his remarks and then gave off the cuff history lessons to the gallery. On Malta, Gallipoli, and Palestine, claiming that the conflict there had been going on for eons. Never mind the Israeli occupation began in 1948.

The Palestinian didn’t bite as each new outrageous accusation was levelled at him from the bench.

Eventually the magistrate asked Subhi straight up, “what do you have to say about the massacre in Bondi?”

Subhi cooly responded, “its appalling, the killing of civilians anywhere is appalling it should not happen.” After all the bluster the fine was set at $900 with no conviction recorded. Amen to that. Despite his bluster and ignorance Magistrate Sarra had come up with a result acceptable to the defendant struggling to come to grips with the daily massacre of civilian in his homeland by the Israeli Occupation Forces back by the United State and Australian weapons companies like Ferra Engineering.

So profane is his honour’s ignorance that he must dismiss himself from hearing any further cases relating to Palestine. Should he refuse, Mr Sarra must be compelled to do so.

Ian Curr
15 December 2025

Image is of Subhi Awad hanging from tripod holding a كفن (kafan)— a white burial shroud in front of weapons factory at Tingalpa in Brisbane. Photographer, unknown.