Allan Meehan replaces Mick Murray as Comanchero bikie gang’s national president

A lifelong bikie has been crowned the new Comanchero national president after Mick Murray stood aside following a murder charge.

Comanchero heavyweight Mick Murray has stood down from his role as national president of Australia’s most powerful bikie gang, two months after being arrested on a murder charge.

The gang’s senior leadership met in Melbourne on Monday following the funeral of a respected gang figure, and appointed Sydney chapter commander Allan Meehan as national president.

Law enforcement figures have compiled an intelligence dossier on Meehan stretching back as far as his teenage friendship with exiled crime boss Mark Buddle, one of Australia’s most wanted men.

Buddle, who left Australia for the Middle East in 2016, the Comanchero “commander of the world” is wanted for questioning over the 2010 shooting of Armaguard security worker Gary Allibon.

Mark Buddle was a mentor to Allan Meehan in Sydney.

Meehan, 35, grew up in housing commission in Liverpool in Sydney’s west.

He became a Rebels member at 18, rising through the ranks in that gang to become Cronulla chapter president.

Buddle later enticed him to “patch over” to the Comancheros where he has been commander of both the Canberra and Sydney chapters.

Meehan’s appointment as national president makes him among the most powerful outlaws in the country.

“He’s spent his entire adult life in bikie gangs,” a source said.

Mick Murray, right, stood down as national president two months after being charged with murder. Picture: David Crosling

Tarek Zahed, Murray and Meehan.

“He doesn’t know any other life.”

Among Meehan’s quirks is that he regularly attends mass at Catholic Church.

Meehan is also well respected among both the gang’s old guard and its newer recruits, many of whom come from Pacific Islander or Middle Eastern backgrounds.

An underworld source said Meehan’s success in stabilising the important Canberra chapter of the Comanchero after the murder of its former commander, Pitasoni Ulavalu, made him the obvious choice to take the gang’s top national job at a time of national turmoil.

The gang has been gutted by the arrest of Murray, the serious injuries to national sergeant-at-arms Tarek Zahed, and the arrest of dozens of members in the AFP-led Operation Ironside raids.

Despite previous speculation, Meehan has told his subordinates he will run the gang from Sydney, rather than Melbourne, a development which makes Sydney the gang’s seat of power.

However, he has is expected to travel frequently to oversee club business.

As well as the funeral he attended on Monday, Meehan was among the underworld figures in the crowd earlier in June for the title fight between Devin Haney and George Kambosos at Marvel Stadium.

Originally published as Allan Meehan replaces Mick Murray as Comanchero bikie gang’s national president