Man jailed for stranding wife overseas

A Melbourne man who tricked his wife into travelling overseas before abandoning her has been jailed for exit trafficking.

Mohamed Omer, 52, was sentenced to four years and six months imprisonment in the Victorian County Court on Tuesday.

The former food science lecturer was found guilty following a trial earlier this year on a charge of exit trafficking.

“You devised a scheme to rid yourself of her by abandoning her overseas and depriving her of her children and her children of her,” Judge Frank Gucciardo said.

“You treated her like chattel which could essentially be discarded at will.”

As details of the offending were read to the court, Omer nodded his head and stroked his beard.

Judge Gucciardo said the couple’s relationship had begun to deteriorate, with Omer exercising coercive control over the woman through threats and financial abuse.

Omer took his wife and two young children on a month’s holiday to visit family in Sudan in September 2014, promising his wife she would be able to return.

After a week he changed tickets for himself and their children before returning to Australia.

Months earlier, Omer had withdrawn his support for a partner visa without informing his wife.

The court was told the woman was left “grief stricken and traumatised” after contacting Australian authorities who said her visa had been cancelled and she could not return.

She spent more than a year travelling to the Australian embassy in Egypt and contacting migration agents in Australia before she was allowed to return.

At trial, Omer claimed he left Sudan spontaneously after the children fell ill and his wife chose to remain with family.

“This is contrary to the jury verdict and I do not accept any of these explanations,” Judge Gucciardo said.

The court was told once the woman returned to Australia, Omer made false allegations of abuse in an attempt to prevent her from seeing her children.

Judge Gucciardo said he had received many “impressive” references outlining Omer’s global contributions to food security and advocacy for peace and prosperity in Sudan.

But he said the well-educated and intelligent man had shown no remorse and the case should serve as general deterrence to other like-minded people.

Omer, who has since remarried, will be eligible for parole after serving three years and three months.