Chained heat: How Brothers 4 Life boss Bassam Hamzy and a notorious armed robber are at war inside Goulburn’s Supermax
TWO of Australia’s most dangerous criminals have declared war inside Goulburn's Supermax prison and the battle is spilling out on to the streets of Sydney.
TWO of Australia’s most dangerous criminals have declared war inside Goulburn's Supermax prison and the battle is spilling out on to the streets of Sydney, writes James Phelps, the author of Australia’s Most Murderous Prison: Behind the Walls of Goulburn Jail.
Here’s an extract involving Brothers 4 Life boss Bassam Hamzy and a notorious armed robber — who have become the deadliest of enemies.
CLICK! Bassam Hamzy hung up the phone, his 30-minute chat with his solicitor over.
Knock. Knock.
He banged on the door, now ready to leave the “phone cage”: a small Super Max cell containing a prison payphone.
“Done?’’ the officer asked, as he unlocked the door.
“Getting out anytime soon?’’
The handcuffed inmate snarled.
“Whatever bro,’’ he said.
“Take me back to my cell.’’
Hamzy’s heavy chains rattled as he moved into the corridor. He spotted another inmate, also shuffling in steel. Is that him? Na, it couldn’t be. Yep, it is. F ... ing c ...
Hamzy charged, his minder left closing the cage. Whack.
Hamzy struck the inmate in the face, his chains singing as they swiped through air. Bang.
The other inmate smacked back, more of a double-handed push than a punch thanks to the cuffs.
Whack. Both men where knocked flat, a posse of guards making easy work of the cuffed men.
“You’re f ... ing dead,’’ Hamzy promised from the ground.
The other inmate growled: “Not if I get you first.’’
SUPERMAX PRISON FEUD THREATENS TO REIGNITE ON SYDNEY STREETS
Welcome to the secret Super Max feud that threatens to spill out onto the streets. It is the until-death-do-us-part prison fight between Australia’s two most dangerous men.
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“BASSAM Hamzy and Prisoner X* are at war,’’ revealed a Super Max officer.
“They have both put hits out on each other and they had a massive blue in handcuffs not long ago.
“Hamzy was being moved out of the phone cage, the segregation area and they crossed paths. It was on as soon as he saw him. They were smashing each other while in chains.’’
So who is this Prisoner X? We have already heard about Hamzy, the gang leader who ran his criminal empire from prison with a mobile phone, but who is this bloke he wants to kill? And what makes this Prisoner X so dangerous?
“He is so bad he gets moved around in ankle cuffs,’’ the Goulburn officer continued. “He did all the armed robberies in Sydney. He is a very, very dangerous man and a very heavy criminal.
“He is also a very fit boy who knows how to fight. He gets moved in shackles and has
a police escort with him wherever he goes.’’
Prisoner X was arrested in 2013 for an armed robbery on an Armaguard cash delivery van. He was charged with seven offences relating to the million-dollar robbery. His arrest came a year after he was found not guilty of committing other heists.
“He was taken to Goulburn and put in X-Wing at first which is minimum security,’’ a prison officer said.
“But thankfully someone had a closer look at his file and saw he had over 40 charges that he hadn’t been convicted of. The officer spoke to the boss and told him who Prisoner X was and what he was capable of.
“The boss looked at it and agreed he shouldn’t be in X-Wing. There were 45 outstanding charges, including hold up armoured van charges, discharge firearm charges, and assault charges. He was one bad dude. If that paperwork hadn’t been studied, he would have been put in X-Wing and he would have escaped straight away. We soon found out what he was capable off.’’
A PHONE tap uncovered the audacious plan that almost got Prisoner X out. The intercepted call also showed just how dangerous this almost minimum-security inmate was. The prison officer said: “There was a plot last year where he was going to be broken out. He had smuggled a mobile phone into prison and used it to hire people to get him out.’’
Prisoner X was planning on stabbing himself in the leg. He was going to drive a dirty big shiv through his flesh and claim he had been attacked.
“And then men he had hired were going to ram the ambulance,’’ the officer continued.
“They were going to come armed with machine guns and shoot all the escort staff and get him out while he was on the way to hospital.
“Thankfully the escape plan was uncovered through phone intercepts. It was then we figured out how dangerous he was. He has a big gang on the outside that he still commands and he also has plenty of money. They only ever got back a bit of the money he allegedly stole and he is suspected of having millions on the streets.’’
So it is money and men that makes Prisoner X so dangerous?
“Yep,’’ the officer said.
“He is a real piece of work … very fit and very dangerous. He has a lot of money and a lot of connections. He is one of the most dangerous inmates in the country.’’
And that is why he was sent to the HRMCC. To live less than 25m away from the violent criminal who has promised to kill him.
PRISON officials claim a war between Hamzy and Prisoner X has spilled on to Sydney’s streets with rival gangs exchanging shots ordered by the incarcerated pair.
“Hamzy is after him and anyone that is with him,’’ an intelligence officer said. “There is massive intel on them. Hamzy has a lot of connections on the outside and so does Prisoner X so it is a bit of a tit-for-tat thing.
“A lot of those shootings that are happening at the moment are over this. They are two dangerous dudes, even when behind bars.’’
So why are they warring?
“Because (Prisoner X) was charged with shooting (someone linked to Hamzy’s family),’’ the
officer said. “Doesn’t take a genius to work that one out.’’
Prisoner X was charged with shooting the victim after a handgun used in the shooting was found in his Sydney home. The gun was discovered by police when they arrested Prisoner X for the armed holdup on the cash van. Ballistics tests matched the gun to the shooting.
Officer’s stopped the pair from making good on their death threats when they came together inside the HRMCC.
“It was jumped on pretty quick,’’ a Super Max guard says.
“They were both in handcuffs so they couldn’t put up much of a fight against the officers. They could have done some damage if they weren’t around even with the cuffs on because you can definitely still throw them. A double-handed punch straight from the chest would do a lot of damage with the metal cuff. It would split you right open.
“Prisoner X got the better of the short exchange because he is a lot stronger than Hamzy. He (Prisoner X) would have done a lot of damage if he wasn’t stopped.’’
The warring duo live just 25m apart and are separated by one wall.
“Hamzy is one side of unit seven, what they call the long side, and Prisoner X is on the short side of unit seven,’’ he said. “They are only 25m apart. They never come together and never will. Well not again.’’
Prisoner X is considered one of Australia’s most dangerous inmates. An officer has revealed guards were forced to shoot gas into his face as he swung a sock full of cans of tuna after threatening guards.
He was standing in a burning cell.
“He has been gassed numerous times,’’ an officer said.
“He lit his cell, in unit seven of the HRMU, on fire. He used a bunch of papers and whatever other flammable material he had to start a fire in the front of his cell. He had his head covered with a green shirt and he was standing there swinging a green jail sock full of soap and tuna.
“The boys were trying to put the fire out from the front hatch with the fire hose while he was at the back challenging the rest to a fight.
“A 501 was fired, which is a projectile that explodes into a big cloud of gas, but it didn’t really have much of an effect so another went in.
“He was placed in an OBS (observation cell) after they pulled him out and he acted like nothing had happened after he was decontaminated. He just wanted to cause trouble. He is just a mischief-maker.’’
* Prisoner X cannot be named for legal reasons.
If you liked this exclusive Sunday Telegraph story, you’ll love James Phelps’ upcoming book Australia’s Most Murderous Prison: Behind the Walls of Goulburn Jail, in stores on August 3. Pre-orders available at Bookworld http://bit.ly/1dPzxzI and iTunes http://ow.ly/Pq47J
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