Abuzar Sultani was a ruthless gang leader who had become desensitised to murder

When callous killer Abuzar Sultani appeared in court on tax charges while on a murder spree in the Sydney underworld his excuse for not filing a return was gobsmacking.

Abuzar Sultani stepped forward to the microphone and made an apologetic speech.

“Your honour, I fell in with some bad people … but now I’ve got my life back on track,” Sultani told Magistrate Jennifer Atkinson.

It was September 20, 2016, and Sultani had just pleaded guilty in the Downing Centre Local Court to failing to file his personal tax returns each year since 2011. He was fined $750.

Sultani’s summation of his life could not have been further from the truth.

The 32-year-old had already murdered two people that year. He murdered a third two months later.

Abuzar Sultani told a magistrate he “fell in with some bad people but got his life back on track”. He has been sentenced for murdering three people.

All three were pre-planned gangland executions where the victims were ambushed and shot at point blank range by Sultani and his hit squad.

The first was Rebels bikie Michael “Ruthless” Davey who was shot dead by Sultani on his Kingswood driveway on March 30, 2016.

Sultani then executed St Marys drug dealer, Mehmet Yilmaz, in a similar fashion just 11 days before he appeared in court over his tax returns.

The third victim was glamorous Sydney underworld figure Pasquale Barbaro on November 14, 2016. Sultani shot Barbaro five times in the back of the head and neck. He later told an associate the hit was “personal”.

Sultani had been busy in 2016.

He allegedly planned to kill another crime figure who was attending Davey’s funeral. But Sultani aborted the plot when he noticed how many police were watching the funeral.

Pasquale Barbaro was murdered by Abuzar Sultani. Picture Instagram

Pasquale Barbarowas gunned down in Earlwood. .

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Clean freak Sultani ordered henchmen to urinate sitting down

Extreme tactics Sultani used to find and kill his victims

Behind the man pleading guilty to minor tax issues was one of Australia’s most dangerous criminals.

An interview that Sultani did with a psychiatrist in October contained an assertion that he had become “desensitised” to carrying out murder.

But Sultani is also an anomaly in the Sydney underworld.

He cut his teeth as a member of the Rebels bikie gang. But then he broke away from the group and killed one of its members.

A unique aspect of Sultani’s criminal skill set is that he is highly educated.

He completed a commerce degree at Macquarie University in 2014, and was studying his masters of business at the same university when he was arrested.

It allowed him to run his criminal operation behind the front of a number of seemingly legitimate businesses. This included the St Marys hamburger restaurant known as Westside Grill, and several labour hire companies.

The details of Sultani’s crimes can finally be revealed after the NSW Supreme Court lifted a series of non-publication orders on his case that have been in place since 2018.

Sultani pleaded guilty to the three murders and on Friday was sentenced to three consecutive life terms in prison.

Siar Munshizada was convicted and will never see life outside of a prison. Picture: Toby Zerna

In sentencing the 32-year-old, Justice Des Fagan said the murders were “secretive, unannounced, ambush assassinations”.

He also told the court Sultani was a “serial killer”.

Three of Sultani’s gang members are also going to jail with him.

Siar Munshizada was convicted at trial of the three murders and will also serve three life sentences.

Joshua Baines was found guilty of the Barbaro murder and was acquitted of the Yilmaz execution. He was sentenced to 36 years behind bars.

Mirwais Danishyar was found not guilty of murdering Yilmaz, but was convicted of being an accessory to Barbaro’s murder.

Sultani carried out the murders with the help of the three men who were members of his organised crime gang that was a breakaway faction of the Rebels bikie gang.

The gang called itself “Murder Crew” or “Murder 13” and ran its operations from a high-rise apartment on Australia Ave at Sydney Olympic Park.

Joshua Baines was found guilty of murdering Pasquale Barbaro.

Sultani was the feared leader of the gang and controlled them to the point that all had to sit down to urinate at the apartment and business locations.

The operation was highly organised.

Sultani paid $50,000 for a BlackBerry server so his crew could send messages that the police could not intercept.

They had a technology expert at their disposal who knew how to delete the encrypted phones.

Another man supplied between 50-100 guns to Sultani while a sign writer made false number plates that Sultani used to disguise the stolen cars used in the murders.

Another man was in charge of managing a series of the gang’s safe houses.

Inside the properties, the gang kept an arsenal of weapons, including a semi-automatic rifle hidden inside a guitar case.

The firearm lived in the lounge room cupboard of a one-bedroom apartment in Concord. It was next to a collection of other guns, bulletproof vests, stolen police uniforms and hundreds of bullets.

After buying the weapons, Sultani personally inspected each one to make sure he was happy with the quality.

Mirwais Danishyar was convicted of being an accessory to Barbaro’s murder.

Sultani leased properties under other people’s names, including a Hornsby warehouse that was used to hide a car that were used in one of the murders.

As the body count grew, so did Sultani’s confidence and ego.

In September 2016, he sent messages to one of his gang members warning that they had to be careful to avoid police attention or retribution from retaliatory gang attacks.

“ … We’ve terrorised the streets for a while, bro. And they (are) starting to put pieces together. So we need to disappear and go even more underground and survive this…,” Sultani wrote.

“ … Trust me bro, we (are) at war with the system. They want us for a half a dozen of these things … So we need to be smart cause they got (the) best onto us,” Sultani’s text said.

By November 17, Sultani believed he had covered his tracks well enough, but he was starting to lament that his exploits were not attaching more infamy to his name.

He sent text messages to one of his underlings as they watched a news report about the NSW Police Strike Force, known as Osprey, which had been set up to investigate the murders.

“Let’s survive this strike force so we can tell our grandkids hahaha,” Sultani wrote. “We shook Sydney bro … And no one didn’t even know it.”

A semi-automatic weapon was kept inside a guitar case in the cupboard of a one-bedroom apartment in Concord.

On November 23, Sultani wrote a similarly brash text message to one of his gang members.

“(I) can’t believe the shit we’ve pulled off and we don’t get raided or questioned,” Sultani wrote. “Hopefully it stays that way.”

The murders were savage and the footage of them paints a bleak picture. There was no Hollywood glamour that could be attached to any of the cold blooded executions.

Yilmaz died laying in the gutter while Barbaro died face down on the pavement wearing only one shoe -- he lost his other while running for his life.

Yet, for Sultani, the murders inspired a strengthened feeling of camaraderie with his gang members.

“Love you my brother…,” Sultani wrote in a November 23 text to Baines in the days after the Barbaro murder. “ … It was (the) best, my brother. We’ve got a bond together that (no) one would understand.”

The feeling was mutual.

Abuzar Sultani, being arrested at Olympic Park in 2016.

After the pair murdered Barbaro, Baines wrote a text to Sultani about the exhilaration he felt.

“Bro, the last one was the best,” Baines wrote. “I loved the feeling. I didn’t hesitate, just let loose on him, brother.”

Sultani didn’t have to wait long for his moment in the spotlight.

He was arrested on November 29, 2016, by heavily armed police who raided the Australia Ave apartment.

The gang members were arrested and Sultani featured in an iconic photograph where he was sitting with his hands cuffed. Blood was dripping from a gash on his head while a police officer stood over him.

It was the last time he would experience life outside of a jail cell.

MOTIVES FOR MURDER

Prior to his court cases, prosecutors alleged that Sultani told his associates his motivations for murder were varied.

They allegedly included Sultani taking contracts to perform assassinations to make money to finance his criminal operation.

Prosecutors alleged Sultani’s motivations also included revenge for a failed drug deal, revenge for the murder of his mentor and inter-bikie gang conflict.

He allegedly told one associate that he murdered one of his victims for “street cred”.

In sentencing Sultani and his crew on Friday, Justice Fagan said: “There is no evidence to suggest that (Sultani) found the measure of expected financial gain an ­irresistible temptation. ­Sultani sought little more than to gratify a desire to kill.”

The Director of the DPP said there was no clear evidence for Michael Davey’s murder.

Michael Davey was gunned down in Kingswood in 2016.

The motives for Michael Davey’s murder fell away by the end of the case against the perpetrators.

At the start of the case, police alleged that Sultani said he killed Davey for two reasons.

The first was that Davey was involved in a “bad pseudo deal” with him and his crew.

The second, Sultani allegedly explained, was the ongoing conflict between his gang and the Penrith City Chapter of the Rebels, of which Davey was a member.

But this also fell away by the time the case concluded.

By the end of the case, the Director of Public Prosecutions had conceded there was “no clear motive” for the ­murder of Davey.

It was a similar case for the Yilmaz murder.

In the initial stages, prosecutors alleged in court that Sultani took a contract to kill Yilmaz from senior Lone Wolf bikie, Erkan Keskin.

It was alleged Yilmaz owed a $20,000 drug debt to Keskin. Police alleged Keskin took over the debt from another set of crime figures who had kidnapped Yilmaz and tortured him for days in a warehouse.

One of Yilmaz’s captors made an attempt to cut off one of his fingers.

When Keskin arranged for Yilmaz to be released, the debt was now payable to him, prosecutors alleged in court.

The illustration of the murdered Mehmet Yilmaz injuries that was shown to the court.

Days before Sultani shot Yilmaz, he was pictured meeting Keskin at the seafood restaurant Neptune‘s Palace in the Sydney CBD, according to evidence heard in the case.

But as the case played out, the evidence was not strong enough to prove Keskin was involved.

Prosecutors alleged Sultani had two motivations to murder Barbaro.

The first was that it was personal.

Sultani wanted revenge, prosecutors alleged, because he believed Barbaro hired members of the crime gang Brothers For Life to execute his mentor, construction identity Joe Antoun, over a business dispute.

Antoun was shot dead on the doorstep of his Strathfield home in December 2013.

An associate of Sultani’s told police that he said “we killed (Barbaro) because he stitched up my mentor and got him knocked.”

Alleged Lone Wolf bikie Erkan Keskin. Picture: AAP Image/Jeremy Ng

Joe Anton was Sultani’s mentor.

The second alleged motive was simpler.

Sultani allegedly thought he would earn “street cred” for killing a prominent underworld figure and that Barbaro was known for sharing information with police.

When he was interviewed by prison psychologist Dr Olav Neilson in October, Sultani claimed he murdered Barbaro in a move described by his barrister in court as “pre-emptive self defence”

Sultani claimed to the psychiatrist that Barbaro “was making threats to kill me and chop my head off and drop it at my parents’ house.”

This image shows Abuzar Sultani in the act of shooting dead small-time drug dealer Mehmet Yilmaz. He pulled the trigger in all three murders.

During the sentencing hearing, Justice Fagan said Sultani was motivated to kill Barbaro by “personal hatred” and “revenge” for his belief that the crime figure was responsible for Antoun’s death.

What is not in dispute is that Sultani pulled the trigger himself during all three murders, while his underlings played a supporting role.

This is unusual for a gang leader and fed into another theory about what motivated Sultani.

“I think he did it because he liked it,” said one source. “He is so meticulous that he wanted to be in control of every aspect (of the murders) … he was a rare example of a very hands-on crime boss.

“Usually criminals aim to climb the underworld hierarchy so they can order someone else to pull the trigger and distance themselves from it so they don’t get caught,” the source said.