Victorian prosecutors have appeared in Australia's highest court, arguing for a mother who killed three of her children by driving the family car into a lake to have her sentence increased.
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Akon Guode, 39, was jailed in 2017 for 26 years and six months after she intentionally drove into a Wyndham Vale lake, killing her four-year-old twins Hangar and Madit and 16-month-old son Bol.
She also pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of her daughter Alual, five, who was in the car but survived after being pulled from the water.
That sentence, however, was slashed by Victoria's Court of Appeal in August 2018, to 20 years with a minimum of 14.
Chief Justice Anne Ferguson and judges Phillip Priest and David Beach said the original sentence was "manifestly excessive" given Guode's disturbed mental state and difficult personal circumstances in the years leading up to the killings.
Guode survived rape and her soldier husband's death in war-torn Sudan before she came to Australia as a refugee to start a new life.
Victoria's Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd QC appeared before the High Court in Canberra on Thursday, urging them to extend Guode's sentence.
The case will be heard by the full bench of the High Court sometime in 2020.
Australian Associated Press
