Pasquale Barbaro: Sydney figure evaded hitman execution in Leichhardt

WELL-KNOWN Sydney identity Pasquale Barbaro ran down a busy inner-city street dodging bullets fired by a would-be hitman on Monday night.

Pasquale Barbaro

PASQUALE Barbaro is a well-known man around Sydney, with a family pedigree littered with dead bodies.

The 34-year-old consultant was lucky not to join his cousin and grandfather as yet another Barbaro to die in a hail of bullets when a gunman let off at least six shots at him on Monday night.

The gunman walked up to Mr Barbaro as he stood outside a business in Leichhardt about 9pm, pulled out a pistol and pointed it at Mr Barbaro.

Mr Barbaro ran off down Balmain Rd, towards Parramatta Rd, with bullets flying around him. One lodged in the Bald Faced Stag Hotel.

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Police said the gunman was seen to get into the passenger’s side of a blue Commodore sedan, which was later found burnt out in the nearby suburb of Marrickville.

“It had all the hallmarks of an attempted professional hit, except they missed,’’ mused one officer.

Another said Mr Barbaro had nine lives.

Mr Barbaro and three others are due in Campbelltown District Court on December 8 to face trial on charges of manufacturing 2kg of the drug “ice” on properties near Goulburn and at Cobbitty, in Sydney’s southwest, between October 2010 and November 2011.

Pasquale Barbaro, who was served with a firearms prohibition order last September, was shot at six times.

He was also issued with a firearms prohibition order last September by officers from Strike Force Talon, a specialist unit set up to investigate and prevent shootings in ­public places.

Mr Barbaro is a regular at several haunts in the eastern suburbs and was on board a Sydney Harbour cruise when a Brothers For Life gang member was shot as the boat docked at Rose Bay wharf on News Year’s Day last year.

Grandfather Pasquale Barbaro was killed in 1990 in Queensland.

Uncle Pasquale Barbaro was sentenced to 30 years’ jail over a massive drug bust.

Police would not say if Mr Barbaro, who lives in Leichhardt, was assisting police.

His namesake, grandfather Pasquale Barbaro, was shot during a gangland hit in Brisbane in 1990 and a cousin, also a Pasquale Barbaro, was shot dead during the Melbourne gangland wars in 2003 while in the company of underworld figure Jason Moran, who was also murdered in the same shooting.