Comanchero bikie key suspect in Bankstown underworld murder of Walid Ahmad
THE killer of Sydney crime kingpin Walid “Wally” Ahmad is a little-known Comanchero bikie gun-for-hire and not the man killed in a revenge attack six months later, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.
NSW
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THE assassin who gunned down Sydney crime kingpin Walid “Wally” Ahmad was a little-known Comanchero gang member hired by a rival crime family — and not the man shot dead in a revenge attack six months later.
Ahmad was ambushed as he sat at an outdoor cafe on the rooftop of the Bankstown Centro Shopping Centre carpark in April 2016 and shot up to a dozen times.
So strong were the rumours that crime figure Hamad Assaad the hitman, the 29-year-old was himself gunned down by Ahmad loyalists seeking revenge.
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But it seems they gunned down the wrong man, with investigators having now ruled out Assaad as the killer.
The Sunday Telegraph can reveal investigators have confirmed Assaad was nowhere near the shopping centre at the time of Ahmad’s murder.
For the first time police have also confirmed longstanding underworld whispers that Ahmad — a member of a feared and influential family with deep roots in southwest Sydney — was killed in retaliation for a shooting at his smash repairs in Condell Park three weeks earlier.
“We believe this murder was a contract killing and related to previous shootings that were part of an escalating dispute between two local crime groups,” Homicide Squad Detective Superintendent Scott Cook told The Sunday Telegraph.
“Murder in NSW is not acceptable. Resolving disputes by killing others is not acceptable.”
The conflict between Ahmad and another well-known criminal network resulted in four murders and at least two other shootings between April 2016 and May last year.
In recent months, the homicide investigation into Ahmad’s death identified the suspected killer — a little-known, 33-year-old bikie who accepted the bounty on Ahmad’s head.
He is currently holed up in a luxury apartment in the CBD.
Three weeks before Ahmad was killed, the 40-year-old — known for his hedonistic lifestyle and mediator status in the underworld — dodged bullets in a shootout.
Members of the rival crime family turned up outside A Team Smash Repairs in Condell Park to settle a dispute, which police believe centred around money and drugs.
Safwan Charbaji, a member of the rival family, was shot dead in the ensuing chaos.
In the fog of war, those seeking retribution found it difficult to establish who fired the lethal shot.
Regardless, Ahmad was to be the payback.
Ahmad had returned from a trip to Queensland and settled back into his daily routine that took him to the gym at Bankstown Centro each morning.
He was a creature of habit but naively hoped his entourage would protect him.
Superintendent Cook said Ahmad would have expected he was a target.
“They all do, they are hyper-vigilant, they are gangsters,” he said.
“They always look over their shoulder.”
On the morning of April 29, 2016, CCTV captured a man slide out of the back seat of a white Mercedes AMG in the Bankstown Centro carpark.
He unloaded more than a dozen shots towards Ahmad as he sat at the Havana cafe.
The getaway driver and the gunmen then dumped the stolen Mercedes and swapped to a stolen VW Scirocco hatch.
Supt Cook said police were trying to determine where the Mercedes was stored before the murder.
“We are continuing to make inquiries into the persons responsible for this murder,” he said.
“We have the cars that were used, we have evidence from those cars, we know the cars were provided to the killers by others not involved in the shooting.”