Confusion and delays: The Salim Mehajer story

EVEN by his standards, under siege property developer Salim Mehajer had a baffling week.

FEW would doubt that Salim Mehajer had seen better weeks than the one just ended.

The businessman, property developer and the ex-deputy mayor of Auburn has rarely been out of the news since he exploded into home pages and front pages across Australia with his over-the-top 2015 wedding.

Stories about weddings, breakups, arrests and financial strife have never been far from the 31-year-old — and the chaos was truly laid bare this week as he appeared in public for the first time since his dramatic arrest late last month.

On January 23 police arrested Mehajer and five others, charging him with perverting the course of justice and conspiracy to cheat and defraud in relation to a car crash. He was on his way to court for a hearing about an alleged assault of a taxi driver when the crash occurred.

Police alleged Mehajer had engaged in a joint criminal enterprise with five people to set up the crash, and had conspired with his co-accused before and after the incident to provide a false account to an insurance company and others.

Mehajer has dodged time in custody several times, but his luck finally ran out when he was denied bail by Magistrate Jennifer Giles who said the case against him was “quite damning”.

Mehajer then spent eights days behind bars most likely at the Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre (MRRC) at Silverwater in western Sydney. He would have been strip searched on arrival.

On Wednesday in courtroom 4.6 at Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court Mehajer was back in court, this time to defend the allegations of assaulting a taxi driver during a scuffle outside The Star casino.

Former Auburn Deputy Mayor Salim Mehajer is in custody.

He has pleaded not guilty to charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, larceny to the value of $2000, destroy or damage property and common assault in relation to the April 2 incident.

This was supposed to have happened in October — until the car crash — and Magistrate Vivian Swain was expecting it to ahead.

It didn’t. And the reasons for exactly why are still not entirely clear.

Mehajer had been brought up into the courtroom twice by male prison officers and placed in a glass-walled dock in the court. Dressed smartly in the same black suit he was wearing when he was arrested, and holding a white folder, Mehajer stared straight ahead as his lawyer Brett Galloway advised the court that he was withdrawing from the case.

Observers noted Mehajer the prisoner looked thinner than he did on the outside, but he was still well presented with his hair slicked back.

Mr Galloway told her his representation of Mehajer might be “untenable” and he would have to withdraw due to an “ethical dilemma”.

After he left, Mehajer told Ms Swain there weren’t enough funds in his solicitor’s account because following his arrest he had no access to telephones and that the account had been placed under a garnishee.

Mehajer wasn’t smiling much this week. Picture: AAP

He asked for a further delay in proceedings, leading to Prosecutor Amin Assaad pointing out this was the second time the proceedings had been delayed.

The case was adjourned and put on the busy court schedule on Thursday for mention. But the confusion wasn’t over.

Mehajer still didn’t have any legal representation. He said he had spoken with a legal aid lawyer, who “hadn’t turned up”, and asked for a further delay.

“It’s been difficult to contact my legal representatives,” he said.

Mr Assaad told the court he considered it “very unlikely” that Mehajer would “meet the means test for [legal aid] assistance”.

By this time Ms Swain wanted him to be clear about a few things.

She fixed a new date for the hearing of February 28 to March 2, telling Mehajer the matter will proceed, “whether you are represented or not, it’s listed for three days and the matter will continue until it is completed.”

When asked if he understood Mehajer simply replied: “Sure”.

He had a few questions about some house keeping matters. Would the rescheduled hearing all happen in a row? He noted he had other matters before the court in February and March — both criminal civil — and appeared anxious there would be no clash with them, telling Ms Swain: “I don’t have my diary to be sure”.

Before the matter came to an end and he disappeared down into the cells again Mehajer had one last thing to say.

Salim Mehajer with sister Aisha.

He wanted to know if he could apply for bail on the charges he was being held in custody for. He said the matter was supposed to be listed to be heard at Central Local Court, but when court staff searched they could not find a record of that.

He later said he needed to be released because he had a “number of commercial matters on foot” and custody was causing him “massive business disruptions”, reported Channel 9.

To add to his misery, Mr Assaad cast doubt on whether or not he was even eligible for bail as a previous application had already been refused by the local court. That leaves a bid for freedom at the Supreme Court as his only option.

With the matter unable to be resolved in court the magistrate was forced to adjourn. Again.

Mehajer is listed to appear in court for a mention next week and will return for a hearing on February 19 where he will be defending charges he assaulted a Channel 7 journalist in April.

The Mehajer show rolls on.

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