Man police believe is Hawi’s killer still in Australia but has ‘gone to ground’
THE killer of former Comanchero boss Mahmoud “Mick” Hawi is a member of the rival Lone Wolf motorcycle gang who has spent time in prison and has now gone to ground, police believe.
NSW
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POLICE have used DNA to identify the assassin who gunned down Mahmoud “Mick” Hawi in a daylight execution as a former friend of the Comanchero bikie boss.
The killer, who cannot be named, is a member of the rival Lone Wolf motorcycle gang, aged in his 30s and who has spent time in prison, the Sunday Telegraph has learned.
Official sources said Hawi and the killer were friends but fell out about a year ago after Hawi chastised him over his treatment of a woman.
Another source said Hawi cut the man out of his social circle because of his volatile behaviour.
Despite his membership of a rival gang, Hawi’s killer had been seen with senior Comanchero members both before and after the murder.
It is understood the killer has since gone to ground.
While the man is believed to still be in the country, police declined to say why they had not made an arrest.
Asked if the assassin was still a member of the Lone Wolf gang, a police source said: “There’s nothing to say he isn’t, but he hasn’t been seen playing dress-ups for a while.”
The breakthrough was the result of months of painstaking work by the Criminal Group Squad using DNA at the scene linking him to the crime.
Hawi, 37, the former national president of the Comanchero bikie gang, was shot repeatedly through the window of his Mercedes-Benz 4WD outside Fitness First at Rockdale, in Sydney’s south, on February 15.
CCTV footage shows the killer, dressed in black and wearing a balaclava, running up to Hawi’s car and firing a number of times. He then fled to a grey Mercedes that was later found burnt out near the scene. Hawi, a father of two, was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital after suffering a heart attack in the ambulance.
Police revealed last month that Hawi’s involvement with extortion in the construction industry was a motivating factor for the murder, although other lines of inquiry remained open.
A source close to Hawi said a factional dispute within the Comanchero gang also may have led to the hit.
He said the murder, signed off on by Australian-based Comanchero members, may have come from a former gang rival living in Dubai.
However rumours that Hawi had a $10 million price on his head were rubbished by a police source, who said: “No gangster’s life is worth that much, doesn’t matter who you are.”
Hawi was convicted of murder over the 2009 Sydney Airport brawl in which Hells Angels member Anthony Zervas was stabbed and bludgeoned to death with a bollard.
The charge was downgraded to manslaughter on appeal and Hawi pleaded guilty. He was freed from jail soon after.
Hawi is survived by his wife, Carolina Gonzales, with whom he began a relationship in 1995 while they were both still at school. In 2002 they were married and had two sons together. In February, the NSW Supreme Court granted Ms Gonzales permission to posthumously extract sperm from her dead husband.
After being released for the airport killing, Hawi quit the Comanchero gang but remained in contact with its members.
Before his death, Hawi had been named as the target in another assassination plot. In June, 2009, two inmates of Broken Hill prison — a high-profile Middle Eastern underworld figure, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and his underling — discussed the cost of ordering a hit on Hawi and his school friend Daux Ngakuru, the gang’s sergeant-at-arms.
The underworld figure said the hit never went ahead because he couldn’t find anyone to take the contract.
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