How revenge shooting of family matriach Maha Hamze unfolded

After the cousin of Sydney crime lord Bassam Hamzy stole $5000 from Reynold Glover’s mum, the vengeful crim turned up at his front door with a loaded gun. WATCH THE VIDEO SHOWING THE GUN.

Maha Hamze was in the backyard of her Auburn home, smoking a cigarette and talking to her daughter on the phone, when she heard a banging on her front door.

It was 2.30pm on March 9, 2013, and the aunt of jailed crime boss Bassam Hamzy — who has never been accused of wrongdoing herself — walked past a young female relative who was on the couch watching TV, to the front door.

The 44-year-old had long been security conscious but, in an oversight, the security screen doors had not been locked when her husband left the house that day.

She did not open the double wooden doors. Instead, she kept it closed and said: “Who is it?”.

Ms Hamze saw the door handle being turned and the door being pushed and heard a male voice reply: “Open the door.”

The voice belonged to Reynold Glover.

Crime family boss Bassam Hamzy.

His aunt, shooting victim Maha Hamze.

Glover was on a revenge mission and looking for Ms Hamze’s son, Bilal.

Bilal had stolen $5000 from Glover’s mother and was now the target for his revenge.

Glover would later tell a friend he didn’t know who was on the other side of the door. He was after Bilal and didn’t care if there was an army of gangsters on the other side.

Direct revenge on Bilal wasn’t going to happen that day. He was in jail but Glover didn’t know that at the time.

Glover said he saw Hamze’s car at the property so beeped his horn and revved his engine in an attempt to get him to come outside.

Ms Hamze was the only adult home that day.

Reynold Glover.

Bilal Hamze was his target.

She took the phone away from her ear and held it down while she attempted to look through the peephole of the door. Before she could look through it, Glover started shooting through the door.

He unloaded 31 shots. Eight of them hit Ms Hamze.

Badly wounded, Ms Hamze stepped back towards the stairs and held onto her staircase banister.

The gunshots fractured her left tibia, which required a metal plate to be inserted in her leg, and fractured to her right femur. She also suffered bullet wounds to her pelvic region.

Ms Hamze spent 25 days recovering in Westmead Hospital.

Her sister, who lived next door, rushed to her aid and called triple-0 when she heard the gunshots.

Police arrived 15 minutes later and Ms Hamze told them she didn’t know who shot her.

One of the initial theories was that the shooting had been the work of the Gotkas family, the members of which had been feuding with the Hamzes.

Bilal had been charged with shooting a 16-year-old member of the Gotkas family but was later found not guilty.

Fifteen minutes after Ms Hamze was shot, the Gotkas family home was fired upon in a driveby shooting, court documents said. No one was charged.

The theory was ditched when police listened to the extent of the recording of Glover’s conversation with Bilal Haouchar in Lithgow jail on February 24 and March 10, 2013.

Glover was arrested on March 10, 2013, and a police search of his mother’s home — where he was living at the time — uncovered the Glock pistol used to shoot Ms Hamze.

On October 28, 2014, a jury in the Sydney District Court found Glover guilty of shooting with intent to murder.

He had earlier pleaded guilty to one count of possessing a pistol without a licence.

A major piece of evidence in the case was the secret recordings made by police in Lithgow jail in 2013 where Glover told inmate Bilal Haouchar he shot Ms Hamze as revenge for Bilal standing over his mother.

Glover’s run of good luck had run out.

On May 15, 2015, Judge Penny Hock didn’t miss when she sentenced Glover to a maximum sentence of 21 years and six months with a non-parole period of 16 years.

He lost an appeal against the conviction in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal on March 31, 2017.