By Laura Chung
Two gunmen lay in wait outside the south-west Sydney home of Mejid Hamzy on Monday morning before opening fire, killing him as he tried to escape down the street, potentially setting off another bloody feud among the city's underworld.
Mr Hamzy, aged in his 40s, was the younger brother of one of the state's most dangerous criminals, Bassam Hamzy, who founded the violent street gang Brothers 4 Life and has been known to still wield influence over members from within jail.
Family and friends gather near where Mejid Hamzy was shot dead. Credit: Kate Geraghty
Within hours of Mejid Hamzy's death outside his home on Simmat Avenue at Condell Park, police were already warning that his fatal shooting could lead to reprisals.
"Police are always worried in circumstances like this, when we have a public shooting, that there could be repercussions," Bankstown Police Area Commander acting Superintendent Darren Sly said.
Mr Hamzy was shot multiple times at 7.30am, but managed to make it down the street before collapsing outside a friend's home in nearby Curtin Place. Despite the efforts of ambulance crews he died at the scene.
Acting Superintendent Sly said the two gunmen then got into a car and drove off. A burnt-out car was found in nearby Yagoona a short time later but police are still investigating if it is linked to the shooting.
Detectives are determining a motive for the attack, but police believe Mr Hamzy was the intended target.
"Based on what we know, it would appear those two males I described have been waiting for the male to leave his house this morning," acting Superintendent Sly said. "So certainly at this early stage we would say this was a targeted shooting."
Mr Hamzy had a lower profile than his notorious brother. Family friends outside his home on Monday said he was a "beautiful family man" and not that close to his older sibling.
Brothers for Life gang leader Bassam Hamzy (main and inset) whose younger brother Mejid Hamzy was shot dead on Monday.Credit: NSW Police
The younger Hamzy had at one time owned a chocolate cafe and was charged in 2012 for his alleged involvement in importing methamphetamine into Australia.
However a jury could not reach a verdict during his trial in 2017 and he was granted a permanent stay on his case in 2019.
The Hamzy family have a long and violent history in Sydney's south-west. Bassam Hamzy is in Goulburn SuperMax, having originally been sentenced to 21 years' jail over the murder of Kris Toumazis outside a Sydney nightclub in 1998.
While in prison, he formed the street gang Brothers for Life through which he operated a $250,000-a-week drug ring, making up to 450 phone calls a day with a mobile phone that had been smuggled into his cell.
After setting up a number of chapters across Sydney, the gang then turned on itself during a deadly internal feud in 2013.
A burnt-out car on Colechin Street in Yagoona. Credit: Kate Geraghty
During that feud, Mejid and Bassam's younger cousin, Mahmoud Hamzy, was shot dead in a case of mistaken identity at his Revesby Heights home.
The intended target of that attack was another cousin, Mohammed Hamzy, who is known as "Little Crazy" or LC, who at one stage led the Brothers For Life Bankstown chapter.
Mohammed Hamzy is in prison for manslaughter after he fired 11 shots into a car, killing his friend and fellow gang member Yeyah Amoud at Greenacre.
Hamzy told his trial he fired in self-defence after another man in the car, whose wife he had an affair with, produced a gun.
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