Bilal Hamze shot at Alameddine rival days before his death, source claims

Days before Bilal Hamze was gunned down in the CBD, underworld sources say he escalated the gang war with the Alameddines.

Ten days before gangster Bilal Hamze was assassinated in the Sydney CBD, underworld sources claim that he fired 14 bullets at a member of the rival Alameddine family to avenge the murder of his cousin Mejid Hamzy.

One of the bullets pumped at Assad Alahmad’s Audi — as he sat idle in a Guildford street — pierced his neck.

Sources close to the family conflict claim Hamze, 34, fired and drove his getaway Porsche into the shadows, effectively escalating a war with the Alameddine crime network.

Alahmad is not suspected of any involvement in Mejid Hamzy’s shooting.

Nine days later on June 17, Bilal Hamze — who left the family home to live in the city with a $750,000 bounty on his head — was shot twice in the stomach and once in the shoulder as he left a Japanese restaurant with a woman on Bridge St.

“Bil done that Sydney shooting, he got the guy in the neck, in his mind the Alameddines did Mejid — that’s why they killed Bil, it was a revenge shooting for the guy he got,” an underworld source said.

“Bil had declared war on the Alameddines and they came back to get him.”

Bilal Hamze was gunned down last month.

The source said the recent violence had shattered a peace deal that was struck while Bilal was serving time.

“The peace deal was over. It was struck when Bil was at Goulburn (jail), the drama had stopped, but things changed, when Mejid was knocked, when blood was spilled, the deal was broken. Bil knew there was money dropped on him (a bounty) but he didn’t care, when Mejid died it was all out war.”

The two networks have been engaged in volatile disputes for years but the violence has escalated in recent months.

Hamzy patriarch Mejid Hamzy was shot dead outside his home in Condell Park on October 19. In February, the Auburn house of Hamze’s mother, Maha, was sprayed with bullets.

That came weeks after an innocent bystander was injured in an attack suspected to be aimed at a Hamzy associate.

There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Ms Hamze.

The family matriarch was shot in the legs in a drive-by at the same property in 2013.

Assad Alahmad’s attempted assassination was the second shooting targeting his family this year. The 27-year-old relative of the notorious ­Alameddine crime family — who has never been convicted of any criminal offences — drove to his home on ­Woodstock Ave, Guildford, before being taken to Westmead Hospital, where he was admitted in a serious condition.

The Woodstock Ave home is linked to the Alameddine crime family and was shot at on March 12 in an incident police say was “strongly linked” to the gangland feud. Police had raided the home just days earlier.

Detectives have been investigating if Assad Alahmad’s shooting was part of the cycle of “retribution” between the warring Hamzy and Alameddine families.

“We believe this is a targeted shooting and it relates to ongoing matters,” Acting Inspector Sommerville said at the time.

The Hamzy family is led by Brothers 4 Life founder Bassam Hamzy, who is locked up in Goulburn’s Supermax prison alongside Talal Alameddine.

Talal was convicted of sourcing the gun used to kill police accountant Curtis Cheng in 2015.

Sources close to the Hamzys accept there was a meeting between the two families in the week prior to Bilal’s execution but claim he refused to agree to a peace deal.