Plan to monitor conversations of inmates like Bassam Hamzy

Conversations between high-risk inmates and their lawyers may soon be monitored by independent officers, in a bid to stop prisoners like murderer Bassam Hamzy from allegedly using private conversations with lawyers to direct criminal activity.

• Bassam Hamzy: murderer to shoe designer importer
• Jail code concealed Hamzy’s drug network, police allege

Independent officers could sit in on conversations between high-risk inmates and their lawyers as prisons try to stop criminals abusing privileged conversations.

NSW Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Severin has asked for advice from the Crown Solicitor about what can be done to curb prisoners such as murderer Bassam Hamzy from allegedly using supposedly private conversations with his lawyer to direct a criminal empire.

“I know privilege is sacrosanct but at the same time it’s necessary for me to at least test that out and see where the boundaries are with that,” Mr Severin said.

Bassam Hamzy during a raid on his Supermax cell in May 2017.

Bassam Hamzy, 40, has been in jail since he was 18 years old.

In the wake of allegations that Hamzy was pulling the strings on a lucrative drug syndicate from behind bars again, Mr Severin is also trying to fast-track the introduction of mobile phone-jamming technology at Goulburn’s Supermax prison.

MORE NEWS

‘Where the hell would I get money for a hitman?’

Cancer patients to receive free IVF

How club’s ‘one for the road’ cost patron his life

Despite being the most supervised inmate in the state, Hamzy has managed to get mobiles inside maximum ­security, oversee criminal networks, start a street gang and cross any boundary in the pursuit of money.

In a candid interview with The Sunday Telegraph, the state’s prison boss conceded Hamzy, whose behaviour forced the state government to pass legislation to give him the highest-risk classification available, was a challenge to his staff and the system.

Corrective Services NSW Commissioner Peter Severin. Picture: Keri Megelus

In the most recent example, Hamzy was allegedly passing messages through his lawyer, Martin Churchill, who was charged this month, to deliver to his underlings.

Prison officers can’t listen in on those conversations ­because they are protected by legal privilege.

A mobile phone seized from inside Goulburn Supermax prison in September 2016. The mobile phone belonged to Bassam Hamzy and was found in the spine of a thriller novel in the library. Picture: Corrective Services NSW

But Mr Severin confirmed one possibility was having an independent adjudicator listening to Hamzy’s calls with his lawyer to ensure they are about legal issues.

Mr Severin said that Hamzy felt “like he was the centre of gravity” and “everything around him is there to please or serve him”.

“We would call that delusion of grandeur in a different sphere,” he said.

Originally published as Plan to monitor conversations of inmates like Bassam Hamzy