Inside cell 856 at the maximum security Port Phillip Prison on Melbourne’s western fringe, Hari Dhakal penned several letters.
They were undated and would never be delivered to the woman whose husband he violently murdered.
The letters were discovered inside Dhakal’s cell hours after prison officers found him “cold” and “unresponsive” after failing to emerge for a 5pm muster.
The discovery, of Dhakal’s body and the letters, marks a grim final chapter in a story that started with a solitary diner inside an Indian restaurant in regional Victoria, a bloody, violent outburst from the restaurant’s chef and a chilling confession caught on tape.
Victorian Coroner David Ryan last week published his findings into the August 2024 death in custody.
They found no wrongdoing on the part of mental health services or staff at the now-defunct Port Phillip Prison.
But the findings did reveal that Victoria Police conducted a search of Dhakal’s cell and “located several undated letters written by Dhakal and addressed to the victim’s wife in which he expressed sorrow and remorse for his actions”.
Those actions began on an otherwise quiet night in Ballarat, 116km west of Melbourne, on Tuesday, October 25, 2016.
Inside the Ballarat Curry House on Little Bridge Street, the Nepali chef — who moved to Australia in 2000, leaving behind his wife and two small children — was working with one other person, waitress Sonia Kurami.
Seated at a table alone, drinking Jim Beam Black Label whisky and becoming increasingly intoxicated, was Abdullah Siddiqi.
The Pakistani-born IT worker, 38, finished his meal before approaching the counter with a request for something spicy.
Court documents show that Siddiqi was “significantly intoxicated” and “had a blood alcohol concentration of between 0.13 and 0.14 per cent”.
As Siddiqi and Kurami spoke, Dhakal approached the counter from the kitchen and told Siddiqi he had had too much to drink.
“It is common ground that the deceased lost his temper,” Justice Lex Lasry told the Victorian Supreme Court at Dhakal’s sentencing in 2018.
“He became quite abusive towards you and, in the Hindi language, abused you with terms like ‘mother-f***er’ and ‘sister-f***er’,” Justice Lasry said.
“Initially you did not respond, in part because your lack of a visa meant that you wanted to avoid any trouble. However, the verbal abuse from the deceased continued.
“There was then pushing and shoving between the two of you. The waitress Sonia Kumari became quite distressed by what she was witnessing and urged the two of you not to fight.”
But a fight did ensue, despite Dhakal’s knowledge that Siddiqi was “too drunk” to do any real harm. Dhakal stabbed Siddiqi 17 times in the head and neck.
“You took possession of a knife of significant size, which you had been using in the kitchen and you stabbed the deceased multiple times,” Justice Lasry said.
“I am satisfied that at least some of the stabbings occurred while the deceased was already on the ground.”
Pictures from the scene showed blood splattered across the floor and the kitchen of the Ballarat establishment.
Dhakal was not sticking around to clean it up. He wrapped the knife in a cloth, put it in a plastic bag and took it the few hundred metres to the Ballarat Police Station.
There is footage of what happened next. In an interview room at the station, the 50-year-old is seated with his hands in paper bags to protect the evidence.
He tells police that he used the knife to kill the customer, but that he was angry after being verbally abused.
He said Siddiqi told him: “You’re a sister f***er, you are a chef, you’re nothing, you’re cooking here, do you know who I am?”
Dhakal described watching himself killing Siddiqi as like “in the movie”.
“I just hit like that, I just killed a person,” he said while illustrating despite his hands being taped up.
Justice Lasry told the court that there were “no victim impact statements” but that Siddiqi “was married and I have no doubt his wife is suffering significantly at his loss”.
We now know letters from Dhakal expressing his sorrow at her suffering were never delivered.
The Coroner’s findings last week reveal that in the intervening years, Dhakal “developed signs of what became an enduring psychotic illness” despite there being no evidence of mental health concerns prior to his incarceration.
Over five-and-a-half years, he would be admitted six times to the secure mental health facility at Thomas Embling Hospital with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder.
He received various psychiatric medications and was released back into the prison population on May 22, 2024, less than two months before his death.
The findings showed that Dhakal was handed his daily milk “through a trap in his cell door before returning to bed” around 8am on the day of his death.
He did not attend the medication trolley to receive his medication and was spotted speaking with fellow inmates at midday.
CCTV footage from inside the prison showed him opening his cell door twice — first at 12.17pm and again at 12.44pm — and wedging an item in the top of the door jamb, according to the Coroner.
Two minutes after failing to emerge for the 5pm muster, a Code Black was called and Dhakal was given CPR. He was also treated with a defibrillator and oxygen but did not respond.
He was pronounced deceased by paramedics at 5.27pm.
At his sentencing, Justice Lasry made note of the fact that Dhakal arrived in Australia from Nepal in 2000 with a business visa.
But a subsequent application for a protection visa was denied in 2003 and he remained in Australia unlawfully.
“Upon your release it is virtually certain you will be deported from Australia,” he told Dhakal.
“Normally that prospect would be a mitigatory factor which would increase the burden of your sentence.
“However, whilst I accept that the prospect of deportation will weigh on your mind during the time you are in custody, given that you have been in Australia for some 18 years, in reality your deportation would be likely to occur anyway because you are without a valid visa and have been for most of your time here.”
Siddiqi moved to Australia in 2003 and studied in Canberra before moving to Melbourne.
He was in Ballarat in 2016 doing contract work.
His family travelled from Pakistan for his funeral, but his father, then 74, was unable to say goodbye in person because he was not granted a visa.
A change.org petition was signed by almost 16,000 but did not sway authorities.
