Nebojsa Zoraja

Background

Sentenced to ten years in September 1996
Unsuccessfully appealed this sentence in April 1997
Released March 2003

Background
NZ Herald story here
This Serbian immigrant was to be deported at the end of his sentence, but the Deportation Review Tribunal quashed the deportation order despite a plea not to from the Immigration Department.

A Yugoslav immigrant serving a 10-year prison sentence for brutally raping the family babysitter has escaped deportation from New Zealand because his expulsion might harm his young children.

The Deportation Review Tribunal has quashed a deportation order issued against Nebojsa Zoraja in 1998.

Zoraja was convicted in 1996 of three charges of raping his son's babysitter, and another six sexual offences relating to his abuse of the 16-year-old girl.

He was sentenced to 10 years' jail and ordered to pay the girl $10,000 in reparation.

The former restaurateur is not due for release until 2003 but has successfully overturned the deportation order from behind bars.

The tribunal chairman, Nigel McFadden, said in the decision that Zoraja's offending was reprehensible and he would have had no compunction confirming the order.

But the tribunal was conscious of the effect of the separation on Zoraja's partner, who had stuck by him, and their two children, aged 3 and 8.