Man faces deportation after Newport carjacking, home invasion

An ice-affected man involved in a home invasion and carjacking at Newport is likely to be deported to Iraq after serving his sentence.

Mazin Putrus, 28, was sentenced in the County Court to five years and two months jail, with a minimum of three years and 10 months for his part in the 2016 armed robbery and other offences.

He and two men who were carrying firearms had arrived in two cars at a house in Newport in the middle of the afternoon, the court heard.

The owner saw them on CCTV and barricaded himself in his bedroom. As the trio was trying to gain entry, the owner’s friend pulled into the driveway.

Putrus took the car and he and his co-offenders used the driver as leverage to try to gain entry to the house, eventually giving up with police on the way.

The court heard Putrus had been on bail at the time for an aggravated burglary and had been before the courts five times before the Newport crime. He had also been part of a riot at the Metropolitan Remand Centre.

His family, as Christians and part of a persecuted minority, had fled Iraq to Syria when Putrus was 14 and arrived in Australia on humanitarian visas in 2009.

Judge Susan Cohen said Putrus’s visa had been cancelled and he was “most likely” to be deported upon release from prison.