Sydney underworld figure Omar Haouchar refused bail in NSW Supreme Court after conspiracy to murder charge

Sydney underworld figure Omar Haouchar been refused bail after being charged with plotting an unsuccessful hit, despite his lawyer arguing it can’t be proven Haouchar was behind an encrypted messaging app username.

Underworld figure Omar Haouchar was arrested on January 9, 2025. Picture: NSW Police

A Sydney crime supremo has been denied conditional liberty in the NSW Supreme Court despite claims he has no case to answer after being charged with plotting the failed underworld hit of a bikie rival outside a police station in the heart of the city.

Omar Haouchar, the younger brother of exiled crime boss Bilal Haouchar, was arrested in January and charged over an alleged conspiracy to murder former Comanchero bikie Andre Kallita.

The plot to kill Kallita was allegedly set to take place outside Day Street Police Station in Sydney’s CBD when Kallita reported for bail on Christmas Day in 2023.

Haouchar was refused bail at Sutherland Local Court on January 10 despite a $20m surety being offered before taking his case to Justice Desmond Fagan the NSW Supreme Court on Friday before a decision was delivered on Monday morning.

The court heard Haouchar allegedly co-ordinating the hit on the encrypted messaging service Threema where police alleged he went by the username “Invisible”.

Former Comanchero bikie Andre Kallita.

Haouchar, in a group of four others titled “Urgent”, discussed the mechanics of taking down Kallita between December 4 and December 9, 2023.

Justice Fagan said they spoke about the “opportunity to shoot him was expected to arise under the conditions for his own reporting for bail” where “they thought he had to report on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday”.

Omar Haouchar in 2023.

The court heard the group chat allegedly discussed how there would be “watchers” who would alert the gunmen when Kallita arrived at Day Street before cars “on standby removed the shooters from the scene”.

Defence barrister Ertunc Ozen SC told the court the case against the 31-year-old was “weak” and there was “no evidence to establish the critical elements of the case”.

Mr Ozen argued there was nothing in the facts which directly linked his client to being “Invisible” and made a further submission that if “Invisible” was his client, a message at 1.40pm on December 9 which read “I’m gona (sic) shut this group down as know.one is interested clearly” indicated he ceased to be involved in the conspiracy from that point.

Justice Fagan disagreed, stating he “cannot accept there is no case to answer or the lesser possibility of it being a weak case”.

Denying bail, the judge said while the facts did not “spell it out” he was of the view the “prosecution is able to show that each of the additional participants in these ancillary conversations is, or was at the time, is associate” of Haouchar.

“It is not really feasible on the basis of such a serious charge, with respect to a bail applicant with a strong record of violence and no other basis for seeking to be released on bail to try and show that there is no case to answer,” Justice Fagan said.

Haouchar is the sixth person to be arrested under Strike Force Barralier over the alleged conspiracy to murder Kallita, who is understood to have left the Comanchero bikie gang and the country in the wake of his own release from prison in late 2024.

The case will be mentioned in Downing Centre Local Court in March.