When Amneh “Amy” al-Hazouri started her new life in Australia, she brought with her a teddybear. On Friday, she was buried with the same teddybear, as she was laid to rest almost two weeks after her murder.
Family and friends gather to farewell Amneh “Amy” al-Hazouri.Credit: The Sydney Morning Herald
The 39-year-old hairdresser had just finished on client Lametta Fadlallah’s hair at a Panania home earlier this month, when the pair slid into the back of a Mercedes to go to an engagement party.
At least two gunmen approached, police say, opening fire and killing both Fadalallah and al-Hazouri in what Homicide Squad Commander Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty called an “unprecedented” execution of two women.
Nobody has been charged over the deaths.
Investigators believe that al-Hazouri was collateral damage in the targeted execution of Fadlallah, whose links to Sydney gangland figures and reported own involvement in the drug trade are lines of investigation being pursued by detectives.
Amneh “Amy” al-Hazouri coffin is carried into Lakemba mosque.Credit: The Sydney Morning Herald
“She’s an innocent person. She’s the most generous person who gave so much back to the community,” friend and al-Hazouri family spokeswoman Louisa Sakr told reporters outside the mosque on Friday.
Al-Hazouri’s father, who is based in Lebanon, flew to Sydney to bury his daughter. Unable to procure a flight, her mother watched the funeral via livestream from her home in Austria.
Lametta Fadlallah was believed to be the target in the shooting.
“It’s unbearable. You can’t talk to them. They are just lost, they can’t come to the fact they have lost their daughter,” said Sakr.
Amneh “Amy” al-Hazouri.
Compounding their grief is the post-mortem process; Islamic burial traditions demand a person is buried within 72 hours of their death. The NSW State Coroner did not release al-Hazouri’s body until almost two weeks after her death, due to the need for forensic testing.
“It’s very essential, a body cannot stay in the fridge at the Coroner’s or at the mosque for more than three days,” Sakr said.
Police have told reporters they are proceeding under the assumption that the target of the double homicide was Fadlallah and al-Hazouri was an innocent party. However, the funeral still attracted significant attention from police who circled the roads around the mosque on Friday.
Fadlallah was farewelled on Monday this week amid a heavy police presence at Punchbowl’s Maronite church St Charbels.
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