By Sally Rawsthorne
The son of slain bikie boss Mick Hawi is one of the nine people charged over the spate of antisemitic attacks in Sydney, the Herald can reveal, as police investigate the possibility of foreign actors and organised crime being responsible for the incidents.
Adam Hawi was last week charged over his alleged role in the lead-up to an incident in Woollahra in November, when a ute was torched, multiple cars damaged and Matt Moran’s Chiswick restaurant graffitied with anti-Israel messages.
Comanchero bikie chief Mahmoud “Mick” Hawi; a ute torched in the Woollahra antisemitic attack.Credit: Nine News
Police say estimated value of damage is close to $100,000.
Detectives will allege that Hawi’s car was used in the attack and that he refused to tell detectives who was driving it.
Investigators have issued the 21-year-old with a future court attendance notice, and he is expected to attend Waverley Local Court in March.
Mohammed Farhat, 20, and Thomas Stojanovski, 19, faced court this week over the incident, each charged with 14 counts of destroying or damaging property, along with trespassing offences and offensive behaviour charges.
Matt Moran’s Chiswick restaurant was among the properties vandalised.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
Hawi’s father, Mahmood “Mick” Hawi, the former national president of the Comanchero, was assassinated as he left Rockdale’s Fitness First in 2018. That murder was the first in a long series of fatal public place shootings in attempts to control the city’s lucrative drug trade.
The elder Hawi had been convicted for murder over the notorious 2009 Sydney Airport brawl between the Comanchero and Hells Angels that killed Anthony Zervas, but successfully appealed his conviction in 2014.
AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw this week said police were investigating whether “overseas actors or individuals have paid local criminals in Australia to carry out some of these crimes in our suburbs”.
NSW Police sources have previously said some of the attacks bear the hallmarks of organised crime murders, including using stolen cars and cloned number plates.
Brewery bar and restaurant Curly Lewis on Campbell Parade, Bondi Beach.Credit: James Evans
Meanwhile, men responsible for a fire at a Bondi Beach brewery fronted court over the attack.
Court documents revealed they asked if they had been given the wrong location and whether they would still be paid after a furious spray from the man who had sent them to light it.
“Use [sic] f---ed the whole thing now If use [sic] f---ing couldn’t do it from the start then why did use [sic] even went there for f--- me It’s not even 2% burned f--- me dead,” a person using the name “James Bond” on an encrypted messaging app wrote to Guy Finnegan the day after a botched fire at beachside Curly Lewis Brewery.
The failed fire was deliberately lit on October 17 by Finnegan, 31, and Craig Bantoft, 37.
Despite the fuel poured in the entryway of the Campbell Parade business, it self-extinguished in about a minute but caused $65,000 worth of damage.
In the fire’s aftermath, Finnegan and Bantoft questioned whether they would still be paid and whether they had been sent to the wrong address.
“So what now,” Bantoft texted Finnegan the next day. “So is he paying or nah[?]”
Later in the conversation, Bantoft said “James Bond” continued to send angry messages.
A detective leaves the crime scene at Lewis’ Continental Kitchen in Bondi.Credit: OnScene Bondi
“All I’m copping from him was messages like wtf, you’d didn’t even do it. There was like 2% damage! Wtf etc etc,” he said.
Later in conversation, Finnegan texted: “Was it the right place, what was damaged[?]
“I know there was no other possible way it could have been done and as for [it being an] easy job to do like he said what a load of s--- so I can be bothered explaining myself to him, you and I know we done all that we could that’s all I care about.
Finnegan said later: “I’m starting to think he has sent us to the wrong place LoL.”
Damage from the fire at Lewis’ Continental Kitchen, on Curlewis Street, was significant. Credit: Flavio Brancaleone
Detectives from Strike Force Pearl, established to investigate the spate of antisemitic attacks that have been plaguing Sydney for months, have been investigating whether the fire at the brewery was the result of a mix-up, with the intended target being a Jewish business hit by fire three days later.
Lewis’ Continental Kitchen, a kosher catering business and deli 1200 metres from the brewery, caught fire in the early hours of October 20.
Police initially said the fire was not suspicious, but later appealed for information and footage.
Two other men, Wayne Ogden and Juon Amuoi, have since been charged over the fire at Lewis’ Continental Kitchen. They remain before the courts. Neither Bantoft nor Finnegan have been charged over the second fire.
Bantoft is being held on remand on unrelated matters and will return to Waverley Local Court in March for sentencing.
Finnegan was sentenced on Wednesday to 10 months’ imprisonment for damaging property by fire as part of an 18-month aggregate sentence for a range of offences.
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