Victoria’s top prosecutor has refused to bow to pressure to appeal for a life sentence for the killer who stalked and murdered 23-year-old Celeste Manno.
Ms Manno’s devastated family have campaigned for a life sentence for Luay Nader Sako, who was jailed for 30 years earlier this month for breaking into Celeste’s home in the middle of the night and killing her as she slept.
But on Friday the Victorian Crown Prosecution Service declined to appeal the decision, prompting Ms Manno’s mother to reply: “I’m disgusted by it.”
‘The state failed her at the time (because) it did not protect her at the time. And now the court has decided to abandon her again.” Aggie Di Mauro told Nine News.
“They said she didn’t deserve to get justice through a life sentence for him.”
The decision comes after Ms Di Mauro and other family and sympathizers took to the steps of Parliament House in Melbourne last Sunday to show support for justice for Celeste.
Ms Manno was stabbed 23 times by Sako, an obsessed colleague, who hammered his way into her Mernda home in Melbourne’s north-east in the early hours of November 16, 2020.
Luay Sako stabbed Celeste Manno 23 times in her own bed after obsessively stalking his colleague, but Victoria’s courts refuse to give him a life sentence
Sako had worked briefly with Ms Manno in a Serco call center, where she was a team leader, and had been kind to him when he was dismissed after just a few months due to performance issues.
He began harassing her, stalking her and professing his love for her, and despite Ms Manno romantically rejecting him and issuing an intervention order, Sako sent 140 messages from various Instagram accounts over a twelve-month period.
Four months before he killed her, Sako violated the intervention order and sent Mrs. Manno a three-and-a-half-page letter that frightened her.
Sako was arrested but released after purchasing a knife and a hammer, and subsequently appeared to have lost interest in Ms Manno, who would be under house arrest for the next few months.
In reality, however, he had found the floor plans of Mrs. Manno’s mother’s house and started driving up and down her street looking for the right house.
On November 15, with just hours to live, Ms. Manno felt comfortable enough to step out with her new boyfriend Chris Ridsdale and post a smiling photo of them together on Instagram.
Sako (pictured in handcuffs) avoided a life sentence on February 29 after being found to have serious mental disorders that impaired his judgment
Sako seemed to have given up his obsessive stalking of Celeste Manno, but in reality he had bought this knife (above) and a hammer and became enraged when she started a new romance.
A furious Sako would later say that he thought Mr Ridsdale’s smile was a mockery and that he was ‘laughing maniacally at him’.
What happened next would tear the lives of Ms Manno’s family apart and now leaves them distraught that Sako – only 35 when he murdered Celeste – faces the real possibility of one day walking free from prison.
A grieving Aggie Di Mauro has said her daughter did everything she could to stop Luay Nader Sako from molesting her, but it was not enough.
Judge Jane Dixon sentenced Sako to a maximum of 36 years in prison for the ‘horrible crime’, but he will be eligible for parole in 2054, when he will be 69 years old.
Last weekend, an emotional Ms Di Mauro told the rally in central Melbourne that her daughter “had her whole life ahead of her” before she was killed.
‘My beautiful sweetheart, 23 years old, God, she had plans,” said Mrs. Di Mauro. ‘She was so excited because we had just come out of lockdown.
“My dear, this was her downfall, too kind. No matter how many times she said don’t contact her, she always said please.’
Ms Di Mauro called Victoria’s laws “pathetic”.
Celeste Manno’s mother, Aggie Di Mauro (both pictured), claims the justice system failed her daughter after her killer avoided life in prison and is ‘disgusted’ the DPP won’t appeal
Aggie Di Mauro (above with Celeste’s father Tony Manno) says she is ‘disgusted’ that the Victorian DPP has refused to consider giving her daughter’s killer a life sentence
“We do not sentence murderers to life in prison in this state and in most states in this country because of the brutality of the crime or the premeditation,” she said.
“The only time a murderer gets a life sentence in this state is if and only if his prospects for rehabilitation are so poor that he might do it again if released.
‘The victim doesn’t exist, it’s all shocking and it’s just wrong. There is nothing about the victim.”
Mrs Di Mauro claimed the criminal justice system had failed her daughter for a second time by showing murderous mercy at sentencing.
Judge Dixon had refused to sentence Sako to life imprisonment on February 29 after finding he had serious mental disorders that had impaired his judgement.
Ms Di Mauro said Sako deserved to spend life in prison for brutally cutting her daughter’s life so short.
After calling police in July 2020 fearing for her safety when he disappeared from view in August, Ms Manno believed Sako had ‘learned his lesson’ and ‘become afraid’ to stop contacting her daughter.
‘Everything stops. He disappears. We literally thought it was over,” Ms Di Mauro said.
But then came the night when she told her daughter she loved her and Mrs. Manno had gone to bed.
Sako had followed her to her mother’s house, climbed through her bedroom window and stabbed the young women to death.
Mrs Di Mauro broke down in tears as she told the crowd last Sunday that she had run to her daughter’s room, “and she was gone”.
“Never, never did it occur to me… ..that this beast could do such a thing,” she said.
Ms Di Mauro said the attention Celeste received from him was neither wanted nor reciprocated.
She said Sako had made her daughter’s life miserable, but police initially did not take the young woman’s complaints seriously.
Ms Manno, 23 (pictured), was murdered in her sleep by Luay Nader Sako, 35, who broke into her home with a knife after obsessively stalking her online
The grieving mother called for reform of stalking laws and the way police respond to alleged victims.
“I promised Celeste that I would get her justice one way or another,” Ms Di Mauro said.
Victoria’s Law Reform Commission launched an investigation into Celeste’s murder and has since issued 45 recommendations from the report.
But Ms Di Mauro said she is disappointed by the delays in introducing such reforms since her daughter’s death almost four years ago.
“I got commitments and promises and, stupid me, I believed it all,” she said.
“And we know that if Celeste’s situation were to arise right now… the same way it would happen again.”
