Family and friends farewell to gunned-down suspected assassin Hamad Assaad

Hamad Assad, 29, the gangster believed to be behind a string of shootings across Sydney, including the murder of Walid Ahmad, has been given a massive send-off at Lakemba Mosque.

A woman overcome with grief approaches the pallbearers carrying the coffin of Hamad Assaad at Lakemba Mosque in Sydney’s west today. .

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Big men, big beards, short hair and hoodies, many worn atop their traditional robes ... grim-faced they came on Friday afternoon to bury their slain comrade, Hamad Assaad.

Gunned down in front of his 12-year-old nephew in the driveway of his Georges Hall home earlier this week, the underworld hitman had made plenty of enemies in his short life.

The 29-year-old was the prime suspect in the brazen daylight killing of kingpin Walid Ahmad, who was shot dead while sitting outside a cafe at a Bankstown shopping centre in April this year, loose bullets also injuring a bystander sitting at a nearby table.

Hamad Assaad is farewelled at Lakemba Mosque after he was shot dead on Tuesday.

The 29-year-old was suspected of a number of shootings.

Assaad is also suspected of stealing $350,000 of ice. Picture:.

A trio of Rolls-Royces accompanied the hearse through the streets.

Some mourners were aggrieved by the presence of cameras

A police helicopter flew overhead as the funeral crowd dispersed.

Assaad was also suspected of shooting at Sydney man-about-town Pasquale Barbaro, 35, in a Leichhardt street in November last year, as well as wounding convicted killer Michael Ibrahim ten months earlier in January 2015.

In the weeks leading up to his gangland execution, Assaad was also thought to have stolen $350,000 worth of ice from an Asian crime syndicate.

Hamad Assaad.

Walid Ahmad.

Police at the scene after the shooting at around 11.50am on Friday, April 29.

And there was a lot more besides — he was a man who had given others many reasons to paint a target on his back.

But Assaad’s funeral at Lakemba Mosque on Friday was a time for friends, and they arrived in twos and threes of mostly men, as the call to prayer echoed out across the street.

Today saw a second funeral alongside that of Assaad’s.

But there was no mistaking the dead gangster’s friends.

Some took offence to the Daily Telegraph’s presence across the street from the mosque, and we were politely but very firmly asked to move even further away.

Hamad Assaad lies dead on his driveway at Georges Hall, on Tuesday, after a morning drive-by. Picture: AAP

Others had brief comments to offer as they strolled past, but they were largely subdued as a traffic warden in a high-vis jacket ushered the steady stream of traffic along past the mosque, keeping space for a trio of hired Rolls-Royces and the hearse, ready to take the victim’s body on its final journey.

If there was an on-street police presence, it was undercover, but as the funeral came to an end, a police helicopter hovered a short distance away, coming in for a closer look as the mourners began to spill out on to the street.

Ultimately though, Assaad’s departure was a lot more peaceful than his presence on this Earth had been.

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