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  • 5 weeks ago
John Mikita, grandson of Irma Palasics, speaks following the sentencing of his grandmother's killers.
Transcript
00:06It can't undo what's happened to my grandparents, but we believe it recognises the seriousness,
00:14the crimes and devastating impact that they had on our family. For 26 long years we asked
00:20the one thing that those responsible be found and be held accountable. Today this has finally
00:29happened. There is no celebration. There is relief and gratitude, but also a deep sadness for
00:37everything our family has gone through and lost along the way. Today belongs to Irma and Gregor.
00:46After 26 years they finally have justice. Our deepest thanks go to ACT policing, investigators,
00:55the forensic experts, the prosecutors and everyone who has refused to give up on our case.
01:03Thank you to the Canberra community for standing up with us, for keeping Irma and Gregor's story alive
01:10and when hope was sometimes hard to find.
01:26It's really hard to process at the moment as a family what it actually is. During the judge when he
01:33was
01:33announcing the sentence and the way he had done it, we weren't too sure of what it actually all meant.
01:40But 20 years for Mr. McConey and I think it's 16 years for Mr. Provenzi, we think that this is
01:54a good start. This satisfies us as much as we possibly can. We would have loved to have had more.
02:01The thing that probably distresses us a little bit at the moment the most is just the non-parole period.
02:07The fact that you know one of them will be able to walk out of the jail in a living
02:11room.
02:13But it's going to take 15 minutes for us to process now. The sentence that had been handed down.
02:20We're living a life sentence. Our family has been going through this since 1999.
02:27And so today it's going to take a bit of time from this point forward.
02:33Women who have been fighting both for yourself as victims of crime and other families as well,
02:39as well. So how do you plan to continue fighting for hundreds?
02:43Today, first of all, it's about Irma and Gregor and just, you know, the justice that we've actually
02:47finally got for them. I started my journey making sure that what happened to my grandparents would
02:55go forgotten. And I reminded everybody every year, the call streets on the side of the road,
03:02the media announcements, the campaigns on social media, just to remember that Irma and Gregor
03:08weren't forgotten. There are other families in the ACT that are suffering just like we are.
03:15And the unfortunate fact is, is that potentially there are not enough resources to be following
03:21up these cases. And I would like to hope that our case now is the catalyst to ensure that these
03:27families
03:27also might have their cases be reassessed and opened again to get some justice for them.
03:35And certainly through the work that I've been doing with the victims of crime, a lot of families do
03:41come to me now. They ask me, John, how did you achieve the success that you did with your family?
03:48And it's the hope that you never give up. And that's what I tell them is that you knock on
03:53every door,
03:53you become the squeaky wheel until you finally get the right people to listen.
03:58And the consequences of that are justice, which we now have for my grandparents today.
04:04Are there any concerns that the men might appear sentencing?
04:10Of course, we are fully open to the fact that they're going to appear. I would be very surprised
04:16if they didn't. But if we could ask them one thing, and from our family's perspective,
04:22after waiting for 26 years for justice, that if they could please consider us in their thinking
04:30when it comes to their appeal, and don't put us through more years of the pain that we have gone
04:35through. We just want to rest now. We want to try as best as possible to put this behind us.
04:42Remember my grandparents, for who they were, all the good things that they meant for our family.
04:47We continue the traditions that we have, my grandparents' name, and I would just like them
04:54now to accept the sentence that they're being given. I was a little bit shocked because there was no
04:59remorse. These two gentlemen are sitting there like they were just in an airport terminal waiting
05:07to get on the fly. They just don't appear to understand what's going on around them. And I don't think
05:14that's a lack of language. I think that just shows that they think that what they've done, they've
05:19convinced themselves over many years that they didn't do anything wrong. They may have noticed that my
05:27grandmother was not moving, but they made the conscious choice on that day to walk away and leave my
05:34friends. They're right here. They're right here. They're right here. They're right here.
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