Did Mejida Hamzy’s wedding to an Alameddine spark underworld war?

Hidden deep within court records almost 20 years old lies an underworld secret that potentially reveals the first flashpoint in what is now a bloody war between the Hamzys and Alameddines.

Forbidden love may have been the first flashpoint in what is now a bloody Sydney underworld war between the rival Hamzy and Alameddine clans.

While the western Sydney families have been fighting over territory and drugs for years, one of the early sparks in their feud dates back to a love story etched in Sydney underworld lore.

Marriages between clans can be used to unite competing families. But the wedding of Mej­ida Hamzy to a member of the Alameddine family was bitterly ­opposed by her father, Hamzy family patriarch Khaled Hamzy.

The wedding sparked a bitter rift within the Hamzys in the early 1990s, and was revealed in the 20-year-old court records of her brother, notorious gangster and criminal mastermind Bassam Hamzy, when he was first sent to prison.

Bassam Hamzy did not attend his sister’s wedding. Picture: Supplied

The story painted in the court documents details that, at the time, the marriage caused such friction within the Hamzy clan that Khaled Hamzy cut off ties with his ­entire family while he was in jail serving a sentence for drug offences in the late ’90s.

His son Bassam, aged 13 at the time, respected his father’s wishes and himself refused to attend the wedding.

Young Bassam’s decision caused more friction in the family home, which ultimately saw him live with friends and family of his father Khaled, his lawyers argued 20 years ago.

Eventually the teenage Bassam struck a deal with his dad and his uncle; he would go back to live with his mother.

But the friction only intensified when Bassam returned home and it saw his relationship with his mother “characterised by conflict”.

Mejida Hamzy’s marriage into the Alameddine family only resurfaced last year as part of a legal battle in which senior members of both sides were hit with strict orders aimed at quelling the bloodshed.

She remains the only key member of the Alameddine family her relatives subject to the strict serious crime prevention orders can speak to.

Little is known about her, other than that she regularly frequents the family fortress in Auburn, and shared a strong bond with her younger brother Mejid.

Khaled Hamzy (left) cut ties with his family in the late 1990s. Mejid Hamzy (right) was murdered in 2020.

The humble Sydney home listed as her address is owned by a member of the Alameddine family.

There is no suggestion Mejida Hamzy is involved in any wrongdoing or illegal activity.

It was Mejida Hamzy who in 1998 told her brother Bassam Hamzy his picture was in The Daily Telegraph after he had fled to Belize.

Those frenetic phone calls while on the run, where Hamzy divulged key details, were later used by police.

Police believe that despite the current conflict stemming from the murder of Mejid Hamzy in 2020, both groups have been involved in acts of violence between each other since the Hamzys’ now-defunct Brothers 4 Life Gang imploded in 2013.

Several Hamzys are now in their graves, allegedly over their disputes with the ­Alameddine network.

But long before both families rose to bloody prominence all seemed to be well between them.

Senior members of both families reportedly got on so well that they were in business together, at least for a while.

Patriarch Khaled Hamzy, among dozens of businesses registered to him prior to his death, was the co-director of a company with a member of the Alameddine family.

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