Plumber Osama Hawat not guilty of Hamad Assaad’s murder
Plumber Osama Hawat has been found not guilty of the murder of underworld heavy Hamad Assaad in a daylight execution in his Georges Hall driveway in 2016.
NSW
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- “I had nothing to do with this,” Hawat explains being near shooting
- Assaad suspected in Wally Ahmad murder
The only person to be charged for the shooting of Hamad Assaad has been found not guilty of the underworld heavyweight’s murder.
The “ecstatic” plumber, who has sat in a cell for the last two and a half years, must now rebuild his life after what his lawyers call a “frustrating and disappointing” case.
Details about the bloody gang war, which precipitated the daylight execution but never revealed to the jury, can now be published as police are left with no convictions for Assaad’s murder.
Assaad was gunned down by two masked men in his driveway on October 25, 2016.
He had been considered by authorities as a key suspect in the murder of Wally Ahmad in 2016 as well as other high profile shootings.
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Both Assaad and Ahmad’s deaths were part of a tit-for-tat gang war that claimed several high profile figures in Sydney’s criminal underbelly.
But their deaths weren’t the first, or the last.
A 24-year-old plumber, Osama Hawat, was arrested in mid-2017 and charged after police noticed his work van was captured on CCTV around Assaad’s home on numerous occasions before the hit.
Prosecutors alleged in court he was surveilling the property in the weeks leading up to the attack. But the jury rejected the allegation he was part of any murder plot.
Mr Hawat was charged with murder but never accused of being one of the two shooters or the getaway driver of the black Audi SQ5 which raced up to Assaad’s property that morning.
The jury were told those people had never been identified.
They weren’t told police and many others firmly believe Kemel “Blackie” Barakat was one of the gunmen.
He’ll never be charged having been executed himself in March 2017.
Shortly after Mr Hawat’s arrest he was captured by a hidden camera telling his wife, who visited him in Bankstown Hospital, that he was not going to “roll” for detectives.
In the process he threw away an offer of witness protection and was ordered to stand trial, maintaining his innocence throughout.
Police had said Mr Hawat knowingly signed up to a “joint criminal enterprise” that at its core, was set up to eliminate Assaad.
But Mr Hawat pleaded not guilty and his lawyer, John Kelly SC, told the jury there were “insurmountable obstacles” in the crown case and a lack of evidence to convict his client.
Even the recorded interview with police Mr Hawat was incredulous when detectives told him he was facing a murder charge.
“This is my area, I used to live in Salt Ash Street,” he told them.
“I had nothing to do with this. You’re charging me. I’m a plumber.”
On Monday a NSW Supreme Court jury found him not guilty of murder.
He walked from court with his solicitor onto bustling Oxford Street as a free man after more than two years in custody.
His lawyer, Ahmed Dib, told the Daily Telegraph Mr Hawat, his family and legal team have “proclaimed his innocence and fought this every day” since his arrest.
“Mr Hawat, his family and his legal team are ecstatic,” he said.
“It comes as a huge relief for them all, and we’re glad justice was done today.”
Mr Dib had stood on the steps of Bankstown Police Station, following Mr Hawat’s arrest, and decried the case as purely circumstantial.
On Monday he said Mr Hawat had been vindicated.
“It’s sends a loud message when a jury takes less than 24 hours to come to a verdict in a four week trial,” Mr Dib said.
And while he said his client wanted to return to plumbing and “celebrate the happiness of victory rather than focus on the negatives”, the reality was his business had been destroyed and he had spent two years in custody, away from his wife.
The jury needed to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt, Mr Kelly had said, that his client was part of a criminal group set up to assassinate Assaad and his surveillance of the crook’s home was part of a murder plot.
His mindset in the lead-up to the murder, not his actions, were the crux of the case and the jury ultimately did not agree with police that he held “murderous intent”.
Assaad’s gangland connections were not put the jury – they were simply told he had a long criminal history which included standover and plenty of enemies.
The reality is that Assaad, known to many as “H”, had also faced trial for a “joint criminal enterprise” shooting murder.
He was accused of being one of two triggermen who shot dead Mohammad Alahmad in 2008 at Granville as Alahmad got into his BMW but was acquitted in 2010.
He was also considered a suspect in an attempted assassination of Pasquale Barbaro in Leichhardt who fled down the street as a gunman opened fire in 2015.
The jury in Mr Hawat’s case were told police had approached Barbaro following Assaad’s murder in an attempt to gain insight into the shooting.
Barbaro’s notorious reputation as a criminal kingpin with mafia links were not revealed.
They also didn’t hear Barbaro was the next big name, after Assaad, to be shot dead in the conflict.
The 35-year-old was found facedown on the pavement in Earlwood just weeks later.
It’s understood Mr Hawat plans to return to his wife and family and rebuild his life.