Hurstville shooting: police investigate mistaken identity

Detectives are looking at whether the murder of a father-to-be in Sydney’s south on the weekend was a case of mistaken identity.

Detectives are looking at whether the murder of a father-to-be in Sydney’s south on the weekend was a case of mistaken identity.

Mustafa Naaman, 29, who was shot dead as he got into a white Mercedes on Macmahon St, Hurstville on Saturday night had no profile in Sydney’s underworld, prompting Homicide Squad detectives to ponder why anyone would want him dead.

Mustafa Naaman’s life was cut short on Saturday night.

Among the lines of inquiry is whether the shooter in fact had someone else in their sights.

Police had been looking at whether Mustafa Naaman was any relation of a man named Amin Naaman who ran the ill-fated tech start-up Naamtech which collapsed owing millions.

But investigators visited Mustafa’s heartbroken family in Sydney where they learned the two were not related.

Amin Naaman ran the ill-fated Naamtech company.

Police have also said there is no connection at this stage between Mustafa’s death and the discovery of 23-year-old Mejed Derbas’s body in a burning car at Smithfield six hours earlier on Saturday evening.

Derbas had been shot before the car he was in was set alight, along with a large sum of cash inside it.

Mustafa and another man, Mohammed Abdulkader, 23, were among a crowd of people leaving a boxing match at the Hurstville Entertainment Centre around 11pm when the attack happened.

Mustrafa Naaman’s battered car being taken away from the crime scene. Picture: Adam Yip

Multiple shots were fired into their car and Mustafa died while Mr Abdulkader was taken to hospital and survived.

There is no suggestion Mr Abdulkader had any connection to Amin, Naamtech or any criminal activity.

No one has been arrested over the attack, which becomes the latest in a string of unsolved gangland executions over a six months in Sydney. They include bikie Fares Abounader, crime family patriarch Mejid Hamzy and Assyrian gang figure Amar Kettule.