Mick Hawi killing: Violent end to the life of a bikie prince
HE had cheated death, married his childhood sweetheart and risen to the top of his bikie gang, but the deadly Sydney Airport brawl in 2009 was the beginning of the end for Mick Hawi.
NSW
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THE deadly Sydney Airport brawl in March 2009 was the beginning of the end for both the city’s outlaw bikie gangs and one of their heavyweight figures — Mahmoud “Mick” Hawi.
He had been the powerful national boss of the Comanchero gang for almost seven years but despite sporting obligatory bikie bling and having “arms as big as legs”, he had cleverly kept a low public profile.
Married to his high school sweetheart and with two children, Hawi, then 28, had cheated death two years earlier when the Audi he was travelling in was shot at after a lunch meeting with members of the Finks bikie gang at Leichhardt’s Grappa Ristorante.
UPDATE: SLAIN BIKIE IN ROW WITH RIVAL JUST WEEKS BEFORE MURDER
It was said that a bullet was even lodged in his headrest.
He had beaten a charge of glassing a women at his uncle Charlie Saleh’s Sapphire Suite nightclub and his criminal record barely made it to one page with charges of driving while disqualified, offensive language and possessing a prescribed restricted substance.
He had never seen the inside of a prison cell.
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Then on Sunday March 22, 2009, he took seat 44D on QF430 from Melbourne alongside four of his fellow Comanchero members to return to Sydney.
That’s when he spotted the unmistakeable wings of the Hells Angels on the T-shirt of Derek Wainohu in seat 39K. Wainohu was the president of the Hells Angels Sydney chapter and in the tit for tat warring between bikie gangs, each called for reinforcements to be waiting at Sydney.
Pumped up with arrogance, testosterone and hatred, neither side could back down.
During the ensuing wild brawl in front of terrified travellers and children, Hells Angel associate Anthony Zervas, 29, was stabbed and bludgeoned to death.
His Hells Angel brother Peter Zervas had provocatively opened a tattoo parlour at Brighton-Le-Sands, slap in the middle of what remains Comanchero territory.
Public outrage at the brazen violence led police to set up Strike Force Raptor, which has aggressively targeted bikie gangs in their homes, clubhouses, brothels and on their beloved bikes.
Beirut-born Hawi, who had been a driving force behind recruiting young men of Middle Eastern backgrounds into the gangs, was the only one of six Comanchero members charged with murder to be convicted.
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The case against him was not that he had struck the fatal blows but had been part of a joint criminal enterprise to inflict grievous bodily harm upon the Hells Angels.
Sentenced to a non-parole period of at least 21 years, Hawi had to give up the presidency of the Comanchero club he had held since the age of 22.
His bodyguard, Daux Ngakuru, took over as commander but months after throwing a booze cruise on Sydney Harbour for 350 Comanchero members, he fled overseas as police unravelled the group’s web of organised crime.
The ambitious Mark Buddle anointed himself national president but he has also gone into hiding after the fatal shooting of a security guard.
Police believe he may be in Turkey with fellow Comanchero and drug dealer Hakan Ayik, who left in 2010 ahead of his arrest over a $230 million heroin smuggling operation.
Meanwhile, Hawi won his appeal, his murder conviction was overturned. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter and affray and was jailed for six years, two months with a non-parole period of three years, six months.
His wife Carolina Gonzales, his parents, brother and three sisters were waiting for him on his release in May 2015.
His family had moved to Australia in 1985 where a court was told Hawi had an “uneventful, if meagre childhood”. He left high school at 16 to join his father’s spray painting business before establishing a refrigerated transport company in 2007 which collapsed when he was taken into custody.
A friend once described him as “f...ing loaded’’ with a multimillion-dollar property portfolio but there is nothing in his name.
The family home in Bexley is owned by his wife.
Sources said he had quietly moved into the lucrative scaffolding business where he had linked up with major players in the industry and made another fortune in “phoenixing” companies. That is stripping cash and assets, liquidating the company and then restarting it under a different name. Again, there are no companies in his name.
He is listed as one of three shareholders in a business called Jemorah Pty Ltd, which was set up just last month with family members Ali Najdi and Hassan Hijazi. There is no suggestion Mr Hijazi and Ms Najdi have been involved in any wrongdoing.
SPECIAL INVESTIGATION
► CHAPTER ONE: Inside the squad that beat Sydney’s gangs
► CHAPTER TWO: The real-life police fight club