Melbourne crime figure Nabil Maghnie shot dead
Hours after being shot in the same attack that killed his father, Nabil Maghnie’s son returned to the scene clad in a hospital gown with blood leaking from the gunshot wound on his leg. Watch video footage from moments after the attack.
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Melbourne crime figure Nabil Maghnie was shot dead last night.
Maghnie, considered one of the most dangerous figures in the city’s underworld, was killed in a shooting at Epping.
Emergency services were called to the intersection of Childs Rd and Dalton Rd in Epping about 8.30pm on Thursday night after reports that three people had been shot.
Maghnie died at the scene.
Two other men, including one of Maghnie’s sons, were wounded.
Maghnie’s son returned to the scene of the shooting last night along with friends and relatives.
He had been taken to hospital with a gunshot wound to his leg.
But he promptly left and returned to the scene to be with his family.
He was photographed at Dalton Rd in a hospital gown with blood leaking from a wound midway down his right leg.
One source said Maghnie had been living dangerously for years.
“It was a matter of time,” they said.
The homicide investigation could prove challenging.
Maghnie had a long list of enemies, among them members of various outlaw motorcycle gangs, powerful Middle-Eastern crime figures and victims of his trigger-happy nature.
Police will be conscious of the risk of payback attacks from Maghnie’s allies.
He was said to have been at ease recently, showing no sign of fears for his safety.
Last night, about 30 of Maghnie’s relatives and friends consoled each other behind police tape at the Dalton Rd scene.
Blood stains could be seen on the footpath.
A neighbour Julie, who asked for her surname not to be used, said her husband called out to her about 8.30pm and said he heard three gunshots.
“I said to him you’re crazy, but he said ‘no, definitely gunshots’,” she said.
“We went outside and saw the ambulances and the police. I can’t believe it, it is ridiculous. It is way too close to home.”
Residents of Dalton Road in Epping where notorious gangland figure Maghnie was shot dead have told about their shock at the murder.
Nick Prammemos’s opened up about the fear of hearing gunshots directly outside his home.
Mr Prammemos said he was shocked to see two bodies on the street when he left his home on Thursday night.
He said: “I heard a big noise, big yelling and a screaming - four or five different voices together. I don’t know what they were speaking, maybe Lebanese, maybe English.
“I was sleeping, they woke me.
“I heard about five shots. I said to my wife ‘Lie down’.
“I was scared. I didn’t come out until the police came.
Epping woman Dina Banchy called an ambulance when she came across the shooting as she was making her way home for the evening.
She told the Herald Sun: “As I got out of the bus I saw two people out on the road. The bus driver saw it too and I thought ‘Is this for real?’
“You never expect to see something like that, I thought maybe someone was playing some joke, but as I got out of the bus I saw there was a lot of blood there, they’d been gunned down.
“It’s shocking to see something like that. Nobody expects it.
“I can still see this guy looking at me near the gutter, he was just flat on the ground. The other guy was rolling around.”
Louis Frendo, who also lives on Dalton Road described the scene as like something you’d see “in a movie or on TV”.
He said that while the neighbourhood is normally quiet, there was an incident involving other Dalton Road residents in the days leading up to the shooting.
“It’s always quiet. I have been living here for 40 years, I’ve never had trouble with anybody,” he said.
“Maybe two days ago something happened but I wasn’t here, I was in Albury, I don’t know what was going on.
“I think they had an argument or something.”
Maghnie has been under investigation over last April’s double-fatal drive-by shooting at the Love Machine nightclub.
Maghnie’s son, Jacob Elliott, is on remand after being charged with the Love Machine killings.
Maghnie was a suspect in numerous other non-fatal shootings, including an attempted hit on Mongols strongman Toby Mitchell outside the gang’s Brunswick clubhouse.
He was last November arrested and questioned over the murder of bikie-linked crime figure Mitat Rasimi.
Maghnie, a suspected associate of the Comanchero motorcycle gang, was on bail over a high-speed smash in the northeastern suburbs last year. He had been on bail over a crash on the condition that he attend a rehabilitation facility.
He had more recently been allowed to move back to his home in the northeastern suburbs.
As well as being under the homicide squad’s microscope, Maghnie had for years been a target of the Victoria Police Echo taskforce.
As well as being a feared triggerman, Maghnie had been shot twice.
On one occasion he suffered horrific injuries in an ambush as he sat in his car.
Maghnie then drove himself to hospital for treatment and declined to later co-operate with police investigators.
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Sources say Maghnie had been a heavy cocaine user but his bail conditions meant he had been steering clear of the drug.
He had cocaine in his system when he crashed a Range Rover while driving through the suburb of Woodstock at over 200kmh.
In 2016 he faced court over allegations of a wild brawl at Crown casino in which men fought with bar stools.
He had months earlier brawled with Mongols members at a South Melbourne brothel.
Homicide squad detectives are investigating, assisted by the Armed Crime squad.
A section of Dalton Road, close to the junction with Childs Road, was closed early Friday morning while police examined the scene.
The road was reopened at 8.15am after blood was cleared from the scene by the fire brigade.
The Anytime Fitness and Taco Bill on Childs Road in Epping - where the ambush is understood to have started - was closed until Friday afternoon.
A black Mercedes ute was removed by police from Dalton Road after forensics took fingerprints from the vehicle.