John Ibrahim raid was a ‘set-up’ by cops claims mate and radio host Kyle Sandilands
POLICE told John Ibrahim his life was in danger and to “watch his back’’ in the weeks before they raided his home looking for firearms, his friend and radio host Kyle Sandilands has claimed, adding that yesterday’s day-long raid was “a bit sus”.
NSW
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POLICE told John Ibrahim his life was in danger and to “watch his back’’ in the weeks before they raided his home looking for firearms, according to his friend and radio host Kyle Sandilands.
“Couple of weeks ago John told me he was told his life is under imminent danger. Then amazingly two weeks later they knock on his door searching for firearms. It’s a bit sus,’’ Sandilands said yesterday.
The FM shock jock, who rents a home from Ibrahim in the same Dover Heights street, told Channel 9 that the police raid “smelled of a set-up”.
“If I was writing a script for Law and Order I’d say ‘oh this guy might go and get a gun’.’’
NSW Police refused to comment on the claim Ibrahim had been told his life was in danger.
Heavily armed police made a public display of raiding his home early on Tuesday morning after they had stopped the former Kings Cross nightclub owner’s car while on the way to the city and served him with a Firearm Prohibition Order.
They let Ibrahim drive away before minutes later a team of police went to his clifftop mansion and dragged a safe onto a balcony in front of TV cameras and smashed it open, seizing $65,000 cash while he was sipping coffee in Kings Cross.
In August last year Federal police raided his home and seized about the same amount of money from the safe after Ibrahim gave them the combination. The money was returned to him a month later.
The former nightclub owner recently published a best selling book, The Last King of the Cross, where he wrote he was retired and for the past three years no longer employed an entourage for protection.
Sandilands questioned why police needed to issue the Firearm Protection Order now, claiming Ibrahim’s life has changed and “all he does is read his book and go to bed early”.
An FPO gives police sweeping powers to search at any time an identified person and their vehicles without a warrant for firearms, ammunition and gun parts.
If police find anything else illegal they are required to stop the search and then apply for a new warrant.
Through his lawyers Ibrahim has already indicated he plans to fight the order, all the way to the High Court if necessary.
He has 28 days to make an application to the Police Commissioner to withdraw the order before it goes a tribunal and then on to a higher court.
A leading Sydney criminal lawyer questioned the seizure of cash in the Ibrahim raid.
“On the surface it appears the police have gone outside the scope of the FPO by seizing the cash unless they had another warrant,’’ he said.