NSW: Gang warfare on the streets of Sydney

AAP General News (Australia)
12-10-2003
NSW: Gang warfare on the streets of Sydney

By Janine O'Neill, Police Reporter

SYDNEY, AAP - Masked executioners gun down a Sydney father-of-four in a hail of bullets
in broad daylight outside a mosque.

A carload of balaclava-clad men screech up to a suburban home in the dead of night,
killing two people in a spray of more than 100 bullets.

A man is ambushed and killed during a gunfire attack in front of horrified onlookers
at a petrol station.

Gun-toting criminals murder the wrong man during a drive-by shooting apparently intended
to target his two sons.

These may sound like scenes from the Godfather meets Quentin Tarantino, but they are
a snapshot of life on some suburban Sydney streets.

The escalating bloodshed between two feuding families, once linked by marriage, has
a bodycount of four and has spawned many other violent crimes.

Elsewhere, rival groups aired their differences in a war of guns, attempted murders
and kidnappings.

The spree of terror sparked the formation in October of one of the largest police Task
Forces in NSW history.

Within less than two months of Task Force Gain's formation it had eight murders on
the books as well as a variety of shootings, kidnappings, a disappearance, and attempted
murders.

The 160-strong super-squad's brief was to home in on warring gangs involved in firearms,
extortion, intimidation, drug trafficking and car rebirthing.

While police said the explosion of violence was between groups of criminals seeking
retribution amongst themselves, only luck prevented more bystanders being caught in the
crossfire.

Gunmen were abandoning the usual cover of darkness and shooting by day.

In one gunfight about fifty bullets were loosed off in a southern Sydney carpark, one
of which passed through a car being driven by a woman with a child.

Police believe the gun battle was linked to the gangland execution of Ali Abdulrazak
after he had finished praying at Lakemba Mosque.

It was mid-afternoon when Mr Abdulrazak was shot 10 times in the head and chest at
close range by masked men who pulled up to his car.

Six weeks later in Greenacre his nephew Ziad Abdulrazak died when gunmen fired more
than 100 bullets into a house.

The second victim of this shooting, 22-year-old mother of two Mervat Hamka, died when
bullets struck her in the neck as she slept in an adjoining room.

In October "Razak" family associate Ahmad Fahda was gunned down during a daylight ambush
at a busy Punchbowl petrol station.

A string of other shootings were connected, including two drive-bys within 12 hours
of Ali Abdulrazak's execution.

The police made some headway with subsequent raids, the largest leading to the arrests
of Abdul and Adnam Darwiche.

The brothers were accused of an August attack during which 67 bullets were fired into
a Condell Park owned by the Abdulrazak family.

Police alleged this shooting was linked to the Greenacre murders.

But it wasn't just gang warfare.

A political war erupted when NSW Premier Bob Carr was accused of inflaming racism by
saying the Greenacre killers should obey Australia's laws or "ship out".

At the time politicians and community leaders attacked Mr Carr's initial remarks -
which he later toned down - as divisive and unhelpful.

Australia's leading Muslim cleric joined the appeal for an end to bloodshed, urging
violent youths to "stop submitting to Satan", and condemning the killers as not having
an atom's weight of faith in their hearts.

But Sheik Taj Din Al Hilaly's plea and later appeals from Assyrian community leaders
had little effect. Crime continued to escalate.

In the year since Dimitri Debaz was shot dead during a brawl outside a Sefton hotel,
there has been a spate of revenge crime, including yet more drive-by shootings, kidnappings
and attempted murders.

Police suspect this violence stems from the personal pursuit of two men suspected of
involvement in Debaz's 2002 murder. They remain on the run.

In an unusual move, police released names while issuing arrest warrants for 27-year-old
Raphael Joseph, better known as "Hussony" and 25-year-old Raymond Youmaran.

Police believed some within the Assyrian community may be assisting them, and while
they remained at large fears of further revenge crimes continued.

However, investigators arrested and charged several people including Dimitri's 26-year-old
brother, Aleck, and their father Boudros Debaz for alleged serious crimes.

More violence was added to Gain's murder caseload, including the 2001 stabbing of 26-year-old
Bassam Mansour, from Lakemba, on the NSW central coast.

Then there was the shooting murder of Hurstville drug dealer Michael Collins in south-western
Roselands, also in 2001.

The suspected murder of a southwest Sydney man who disappeared this year, and whom
police won't identify, further expanded the caseload.

In the face of these and other incidents, Mr Carr insisted police were winning the
war against gun violence.

But even Gain's Chief Superintendent Bob Inkster - a police veteran of more than 37
years - could not "think of a time when we've had such violent crime".

By December police had arrested 66 people on charges ranging from traffic offences
through to attempted murder.

But they knew they had a long way to go.

AAP jo/jc

KEYWORD: YEARENDER CRIME NSW

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