By Laura Chung, Angus Dalton and Sarah McPhee
Two women are dead following an assassination in a Sydney suburban street which throws the “rule book” of organised criminal violence “out the window”, police say.
NSW Police Homicide Squad Commander Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty said the attack on two women who were going out with a group of friends at Panania in Sydney’s south-west on Saturday night was “appalling”.
The crime scene in Revesby where two women were found shot and later died.Credit: Nine News
“It happened in a public street in Sydney. [It is] unprecedented and we are determined to get answers for the family,” he said.
“It bears the marks of an organised murder. That concerns us.”
The women were in the back seat of a silver four-wheel drive in Hendy Avenue, Panania, when the car was hammered by bullets. The driver sped around the corner to escape the attack and pulled over in Weston Street, Revesby, where police were called at 8.46pm.
Lametta Fadlallah, a mother aged 48, and Amneh al-Hazouri, known as Amy, aged 39, were found inside the four-wheel drive with gunshot wounds. Two others in the vehicle – a 20-year-old man and a 16-year-old girl – were unhurt. Doherty said they were shaken by the incident and were assisting police with their inquiries.
The women were treated by ambulance officers but Fadlallah died at the scene. The younger woman was taken in a critical condition to Liverpool Hospital, where she later died.
Doherty said the incident was a targeted shooting of Fadlallah who had “past relationships with other known identities”.
Nine News reported Fadlallah was the former girlfriend of Sydney crime figure Helal Safi, a drug dealer, standover man and Kings Cross bouncer who died in January last year.
“There used to be an unwritten rule in the criminal element that you don’t touch family and women. I think that rule of engagement and rule book has been thrown out the window,” Doherty said.
“They just don’t care any more. I think this demonstrated how low they’ve got to this point where any person that may be associated with someone they want to target, they don’t discriminate. That is an unwritten rule and it has never been broken. It is unprecedented.”
Police located three burnt-out cars in Moorebank, Revesby and Yagoona and are investigating whether they are linked to the incident.Credit: Dean Sewell
Several crime scenes have been established, which will be examined by specialist forensic police. Police also located three burnt-out cars in the surrounding suburbs of Moorebank, Revesby and Yagoona and are investigating whether they are linked to the incident.
Asked about the number of shooters in the attack, and whether the three burnt cars in the suburbs surrounding the shooting were stolen, police said investigations were continuing.
The two women were at the Hendy Avenue residence with friends before a night out, and Hazouri, a hairdresser, was there to style Fadlallah’s hair, Nine News reported.
Mother of two Lametta Fadlallah, 48, and Amneh al-Hazouri, 39, died after a shooting targeting Fadlallah on Saturday night.Credit: Channel 9
The 39-year-old was remembered in a tribute from her workplace on Sunday.“We are shattered, our heart is broken, you left us too soon, may your memory be eternal GOD bless your soul. Till we meet again,” the post read.
About 8.40pm Prayoon Kradphej was watching television in his home on Hendy Avenue across the street from the shooting. When the bullets were fired on the quiet street, he thought he was hearing fireworks.
“It went ‘boom, boom, boom’ and all the dogs started barking,” he said. “My wife said, ‘Don’t go out anywhere, it’s a gunshot, they might shoot you.’ ”
Twenty minutes later there were “police everywhere”, he said.
After it was sprayed with bullets, the silver four-wheel drive sped around the corner onto Weston Street and drove about 800 metres up the road.
A Weston Street resident, who didn’t want to be named, called the police when she heard a man and a “hysterical” woman emerge from the car.
“They were walking around and the two injured people were in the back,” she said.
“He was trying to get her back into the car and she was visibly distraught and hysterical. I thought it was maybe domestic violence so I called the police just in case.”
Two other cars pulled up after the four-wheel drive but drove away when police arrived, she said.
Two women shot in Sydney’s west were treated by paramadics on Revesby resident Peter Aitkin’s driveway.Credit: Dean Sewell
Revesby resident Peter Aitkin said the three cars came down Weston Street “really fast” and pulled up outside his home. A group of men and women emerged from the cars and there were raised voices, a “commotion”, and men “moaning in distress”.
Soon three ambulances arrived and paramedics started performing CPR on the two women on Aitkin’s driveway.
“For the next hour and half or so all we saw were these terrific cops and ambulance guys working so hard to revive them,” Aitkin said.
After the 48-year-old woman died, Aitkin took a sweet pea flower from his garden and asked a policeman to place it on her body, which he did.
Forensics were on the scene from midnight and police closed part of Hendy Avenue on Sunday for continued forensic investigation. Strike Force Laurantus has been established to investigate the shooting.
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