Safwan Charbaji: A killing that triggered a Sydney’s blood feud
WHEN Safwan Charbaji was allegedly shot dead by Mahmoud ‘Brownie’ Ahmad following a dispute over a debt it sparked a bloody gangland war which rocked Sydney and has seen the body count mount.
NSW
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THE brother of a slain underworld kingpin dramatically arrested at Sydney Airport has been charged over a murder that triggered a series of bloody gangland executions that have rocked the city.
Mahmoud “Brownie” Ahmad left for Lebanon days after the shooting of Safwan Charbaji outside his brother’s Condell Park smash repair business in April.
Ahmad, whose brother and gang kingpin Wally Ahmad was brazenly gunned down at a Bankstown shopping centre weeks after the Charbaji shooting, was arrested last night as he stepped off a flight from Lebanon via Qatar.
The 34-year-old was escorted by detectives out of the airport to Mascot Police Station, where he was charged with murder — the arrest coming more than one week after Ahmad crime family enforcer Kemel Barakat was gunned down in his bed at Mortlake.
It’s understood police will claim Wally Ahmad was murdered in retaliation for the killing of Charbaji.
The 32-year-old died after he was shot in the chest and Abdullah El Masri, 35, was also shot but not killed outside Ahmad’s smash repairs business in Condell Park on April 9.
Charbaji is believed to have been shot during an argument over $100,000 that ignited the warring Ahmad and Elmir families.
Charbaji, his father-in-law Fawaz Elmir and two others had gone to Ahmad’s smash repair business to broker a solution to the dispute but a shootout involving up to five guns broke out and Charbaji was shot dead and a gang war broke out.
On October 25, known hitman Hamad Asaad, who had bragged to underworld figures that he had killed Wally Ahmad, was shot in front of his family at Georges Hall.
Asaad was also implicated in a failed assassination attempt on Mafioso kingpin Pasquale Barbaro in Leichhardt in 2015.
A second attempt to kill Barbaro, in Earlwood, succeeded in November. Several members of the Rebels bikie gang have been charged over that killing.
Barbaro’s grandfather and cousin were both killed in gangland hits and there were unconfirmed rumours he was an informant.
Shortly after Barbaro’s death, police announced a dedicated strike force codenamed Osprey to investigate eight gangland and bikie-related murders, including that of Charbaji.
Officers have been tasked with investigating the deaths of:
■Rebels motorcycle club’s sergeant-at-arms Mark Easter, whose body was found dumped just off the Pacific Highway at Cowan in June, 2015.The Rebels bikie gang member was shot several times in the head in what police described as an execution.
■Easter’s friend and fellow bikie club member Michael Davey, who was shot dead in the driveway in a drive-by shooting in Kingswood on March 30. Believed to be a member of the Rebels motorcycle gang, Davey had escaped injury during a shooting at a shopping centre the previous year.
■Adrian Buxton gunned down as he put the bins out at his Colyton home on May 19. Buxton’s wife and two children were inside at the time. Buxton had links to the Nomads bikie gang and his death was believed to be linked to two other recent shootings.
■Mehmet Yilmaz, who was shot at point-blank range while getting into his car where his fiancee was seated in a St Marys street. Police said Yilmaz was not formally aligned with any gangs but was believed to be closely linked with one.
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