Mick Hawi murder trial: blood-soaked car photos tendered to Sydney court
A triple-zero call taken moments after the shooting murder of Mahmoud ‘Mick’ Hawi has been played in court as photos of the former Sydney bikie chief’s blood-soaked car emerge.
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Graphic photos of slain bikie Mahmoud ‘Mick’ Hawi’s blood-soaked and bullet-riddled luxury car have been tendered at his NSW murder trial.
Triple-zero calls and eyewitness accounts have also been heard for the first time as Sydney men Yusuf Nazlioglu and Jamal Eljaidi deny their alleged role in the brazen assassination.
A man who witnessed the ex-Comanchero chief’s daylight execution outside a south Sydney gym two-and-a-half years ago told emergency operators searching for the address: “The cops won’t miss it, trust me.”
“We’ve just had a shooting outside Fitness First in Rockdale. One victim, he’s in his car and he’s unresponsive,” Matt Kellaway said in a triple-zero call on February 15, 2018.
The gym goer had just parked metres away from Hawi’s Mercedes 4WD when a masked man unloaded a volley of gunshots at Hawi’s head, face and shoulder.
Prosecutors allege Nazlioglu, 38, was the shooter while Eljaidi, 32, was the alleged getaway driver, but both men have pleaded not guilty to murder.
Mr Kellaway told their Supreme Court trial he’d just turned his car engine off when he heard five to six bangs, and peered through his rear vision mirror at a man in a balaclava opening fire.
“They were repositioning themselves quite a bit, reaching into the car, and then they sprinted off,” he said on Wednesday.
In a triple-zero call played to court, Mr Kellaway gave the gym‘s location to emergency workers before saying: “The cops won’t miss it, trust me.”
Stephanie Nicolaou was working at the Fitness First front desk when she saw a man dressed in a black hoodie step in front of the Mercedes parked outside the gym, the court heard.
“Next minute I heard ‘bang bang bang’ - until I saw bullet holes on the other side of the window,” she said.
“I panicked and tried to duck for cover… I felt glass hit behind my desk.”
Photos tendered to the trial show bullets had ripped through the gym’s front window, hitting a chair inside.
Fitness First creche worker Linda Kellis testified that she saw a person dressed in a black hoodie and tracksuit pants get into a car’s passenger seat and drive off.
“I heard four loud bangs. I heard somebody go “my god, somebody’s been shot in the carpark”,” she said.
The Crown alleges Eljaidi drove Nazlioglu in a Silver Mercedes-Benz to a nearby street where the car was set on fire, before they jumped into a Silver Toyota Aurion.
Crown prosecutor Luigi Lungo told the jury that DNA evidence will prove both men had been inside the Toyota, while gunshot residue and DNA consistent with Nazlioglu’s profile was found on a balaclava stashed inside the car.
Defence barrister Avni Djemal admitted Nazlioglou’s two-year friendship with Hawi had ended by April 2017, but stressed he was not the shooter captured on CCTV footage near the gym.
In his opening address, Mr Djemal said a number of other people had reason to murder Hawi.
The court heard Hawi’s widow Carolina Gonzalez went to the home of wealthy property developer Eddie Haragli after the shooting and threatened to kill him.
“I didn’t mean it. I was angry, my husband had just died,” she tearfully told the jury.
“You thought that he had something to do with your husband, because your husband was trying to extort half a million out of him,” Mr Djemal said.
“No,” she said.
Ms Gonzalez also agreed there had been tension between Hawi and his now exiled Comanchero rival Mark Buddle in the weeks leading up to his death.
The trial continues.
