Underworld figure and boxer Sam “the Punisher” Abdulrahim has been knocked back for compensation recommended by a Supreme Court judge who found he was thrown in jail without justification.
Abdulrahim, who fights under the boxing name the Punisher, had his parole revoked in June 2019 over fears he would be targeted in a series of shootings.
In July last year, Justice John Dixon suggested that the Victorian government should pay Abdulrahim between $160,000 and $180,000 after the parole board revoked his parole because he was the suspected target in three shootings. The board was concerned about public safety.
Sam Abdulrahim.Credit: Jason South
The board, in revoking Abdulrahim’s parole, considered that the safety and protection of the community was paramount and issued a warrant for his arrest. Abdulrahim spent 72 days in custody, 35 of which were in solitary confinement, and he was assaulted by an inmate with a rock.
Abdulrahim had been jailed for three years and three months, with a non-parole period of two years, after pleading guilty to culpable driving over a crash in which Muriel Hullet, 88, was killed and her daughter seriously injured in Reservoir in 2015. He was released on parole in March 2019, before being re-arrested in June.
In a letter sent to Abdulrahim’s legal team in February and seen by this masthead, Corrections Minister Enver Erdogan acknowledged Dixon’s recommendation but denied the request for payment. Erdogan is also the Minister for Victim Support.
Erdogan said that the Justice Department’s policy provided that payments “should only be made where exceptional circumstances exist and where moral or equitable grounds support a payment being made”.
“I do not consider that moral or equitable grounds exist in this case,” the letter said.
Erdogan goes on to label Abdulrahim’s imprisonment as “lawful” and that “his placement while in custody was similarly lawful and in line with the department’s best practices”.
Erdogan said that the cancellation of Abdulrahim’s parole was “regrettable”.
“However I do not consider them to be so egregious as to warrant an ex gratia payment.”
Erdogan told The Age that “our number one priority is keeping the community safe and we make no apologies for actions that do so. I respect the court’s decision and stand by mine.”
“I’m gutted by the decision,” Abdulrahim told The Age. “I feel let down by the system which locked me up for no reason.”
It is highly unusual for a Supreme Court judge to recommend an ex gratia payment of the kind suggested for Abdulrahim. The revocation could undermine confidence in the system of parole for people released from custody and abiding by the conditions, police accountability lawyer Jeremy King said.
‘I’m gutted by the decision.’
Ex-bikie Suleiman ‘Sam’ Abdulrahim
“He had complied with everything they asked of him, and he was validly out on parole,” King said. “The reason he was taken in was because of things completely outside of his control, not because he wasn’t complying with the law or the parole requirements.
“It’s a disincentive more broadly for people to comply with parole requirements.”
After a trial, Dixon found that the parole laws permitted the unjust detainment of Abdulrahim, and that his detention was without justification, despite the decision being technically within the bounds of the law.
“I feel obliged to record my conclusion that the statutory scheme has permitted an injustice to be worked on [Abdulrahim] by the parole board and, more particularly, by those who induced it into error by persuading it to act to cancel [Abdulrahim’s] parole,” he found.
“I will direct the prothonotary to refer my reasons to the attorney-general with my recommendation that she consider making an ex gratia payment to [Abdulrahim].”
A board spokesperson said they could not comment on individual matters, but they had reviewed the decisions made by superior courts related to the board in the exercise of its powers in their dealings with Abdulrahim.
The board cannot compel people who are the target of potential assassination attempts to be put in witness protection.
Abdulrahim appealed the parole board’s decision, and in August 2019 Justice Paul Coghlan ordered his immediate release. Abdulrahim later survived being shot to the upper body eight times in an attack that happened while he was leaving his cousin’s funeral at Fawkner cemetery in June 2022.
Sulieman ‘Sam’ Abdulrahim outside court last year with wife Chloe Wakim Abdulrahim.Credit: AAP
It was, at the time, a highly publicised assassination attempt on a high-profile member of the city’s underworld.
The shooting came five days after the birth of Abdulrahim’s daughter and permanently left him with a bullet in his right kidney.
In October last year, police were probing whether a blaze at Brunswick’s Power Gymnasium, a gym linked to Abdulrahim, was deliberately lit.