Who is Bassam Hamzy? Gang kingpin shot boy, 15, in head in 'execution style' killing while teen slept at home
Bassam Hamzy, founder of the infamous Middle Eastern crime gang Brothers 4 Life has been charged for the murder of a 15-year-old boy. The gang is active in south-western suburbs of Sydney, Australia.
The 42-year-old gang leader was accused of murdering Brayden Dillon in an 'execution-style' killing while he was sleeping in his home in Glenfield, in Sydney's south-west, on Good Friday 2017. The convicted murderer was arrested by NSW Police Strike Force Raptor detectives in his jail cell at Goulburn's Supermax Prison on Wednesday morning, March 31.
READ MORE
Dustin Lee Honken, Iowa drug kingpin, who killed 5 people in 1993 executed by lethal injection
'American Gangster' drug kingpin Frank Lucas dead at 88
Who is Bassam Hamzy?
Bassam Hamzy is Australia's most powerful gangster who operated the crime syndicate Brothers 4 Life from behind bars, reported News.com. He is Australia's first and only extreme high-risk inmate at Goulburn supermax prison. The report added that Brothers 4 Life was involved in a gang war with one part of Sydney's Muslim community, with some members believed to have engaged in kidnaps, shootings, kneecappings and murder in New South Wales and other interstate regions.
The gang began in the Bankstown-Greenacre area as a loose association of several other gangs. They came to public prominence largely from internal disputes between the Lebanese Australian Bankstown chapter and the Afghan Australian Blacktown chapter. After the arrest of two gang members — one of them was a man with 40 drug and gang-related charges — the report speculated whether convicted murderer Hamzy is still pulling the strings from inside prison.
"Because of his nature and general unwillingness to cooperate with authorities, he's not the type of person who would have a conversation with us or answer questions," an officer at Rosehill Local Area Command (LAC) in Sydney had said in the News.com report. "But these alleged offences are a very big deal."
Hamzy, an al-Qaeda devotee, was originally jailed when he was 18, for the 1998 shooting murder of Kris Toumazis outside a Sydney nightclub. The kingpin, who the report stated has an uncanny ability to manipulate an underworld crime operation while in custody, was subsequently convicted for conspiring to murder a witness against him. Prison commissioners in NSW have been confounded by him. They have called him "Australia's most dangerous gangster" and "very manipulative, very bright" with "a propensity to stand over people", according to the report.
'Plot murder from behind bars'
Police responded to a call at a house at 6.10 am on April 14 after intruders forced their way into the teenager's bedroom and shot him in the head. The shooter, Conrad Craig, was jailed for at least 30 years following the shocking murder. Brothers 4 Life associate Abdul Abu-Mahmoud, who organized and financed the shooting, was also found guilty of murder. The underworld masterminded the hit as a retaliation for the death of his nephew Adam Abu-Mahmoud, according to Daily Mail.
Dillon's brother Joshua was ruled to have knifed Adam in self defense during a July 2016 street brawl in Panania, southwest Sydney. Craig, who was originally set to testify against Abu-Mahmoud during the trial, had sensationally changed his testimony on the witness stand and alleged Hamzy plotted the killing from behind bars.
The gangland kingpin is currently serving a 40-year sentence for a litany of serious crimes at the Goulburn Correctional Centre in the Supermax section. He has been charged with acting with intent to pervert the course of justice and participating in a criminal group and will appear in Goulburn Local Court via video link on May 19. Hamzy is now the eighth person charged in relation to Dillon's death.