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Couple shot in Lamborghini in Sydney’s Castle Cove
* Couple gunned down in exclusive suburb
* Both shot as they sat in Lamborghini
* Police fear reprisal attacksA MAN and a woman were gunned down outside a home in the exclusive Sydney north shore suburb of Castle Cove last night.
The couple were sitting in a Lamborghini outside the man’s house on Neerim Road when they were both shot by an unknown gunman shortly after 11.30pm.
The man was shot five times and sustained injuries to the upper part of his body, stomach and arm.
Superintendent Peter Yeomans said the gunman was waiting for his victims.
“I think it would be quite obvious from his injuries, on the upper part of his body, that the person tried to kill the male in the vehicle,” Supt Yeomans said.
He would not confirm if the shooting was bikie related, but he did say police had previously attended the Castle Cove home although he would not reveal how many times or why.
Both victims are under police guard in Royal North Shore hospital, he said.
The man needed surgery and is in a stable but serious condition, while the woman is recovering with a gunshot wound to the leg.
Supt Yeoman said he was “mindful of a reprisal attack”.
Source: News.com.au
Sydney gunman intended to kill: police
A gunman who waited for two people before shooting them while they sat in a Lamborghini in a suburban north Sydney street set out to kill at least one of the victims, police say.
Police were called to Neerim Road, Castle Cove, about 11.25pm (AEST) on Friday after a number of shots were fired at a 35-year-old man and 23-year-old woman as they sat in the car outside the man’s home.
He was at shot five times.
Superintendent Peter Yeomans on Saturday told reporters the gunman had been waiting for his victims.
“I think it would be quite obvious from his injuries, on the upper part of his body, that the person tried to kill the male in the vehicle,” Supt Yeomans said.
The shot man sustained injuries to the upper part of his body, stomach and arm.
Police have refused to confirm media reports that the victim is Fadi Ibrahim, whose brother has alleged links to bikie gangs.
Supt Yeomans said police had previously attended the Castle Cove home but would not reveal how many times or why.
Both victims are under police guard in Royal North Shore hospital, he said.
The man needed surgery and is in a stable but serious condition, while the woman is recovering with a gunshot wound to the leg.
Supt Yeoman said he was “mindful of a reprisal attack”.
On Saturday there was no sign of the shooting, with residents walking along the street and children riding their bikes.
Source: ninemsn.com.au
Criminals give the skinny on Ibrahims
THE four Ibrahims, the Brothers Grim, have been on the fringes and at times in the centre of Sydney’s underworld since the 1980s, but few have landed a glove on them.
“I’ve never lost a fight,” the nightclub owner John Ibrahim boasted in 1993’s People Of The Cross, a book that gave him such rein to brag that some think he had just finished reading Chopper Read’s first effort.
“I’ve seen violence beyond belief … people have died in front of me.”
But as drive-by shootings, bombs and bikies make their presence felt in Sydney, Ibrahim’s colourful racing-identity-speak has lost its gloss.
His younger brother, Fadi Donny, was “hit” last Friday while sitting in his black Lamborghini in Castle Cove with his girlfriend.
Police say this youngest of the band of brothers had been treading on toes as he moved out of the shadow of his high-profile brothers, John, Hassan “Sam” (on remand for kidnapping) and Michael (jailed for up to nine years for his part in the stabbing death of Robin Nassour, brother of the television actor George).
Coincidently, Shayda Bastani Rad, the woman in the Italian sports car, was once engaged to Faouzi Abou-Jibal, an apprentice criminal wanted for Nassour’s killing until he was shot in the back while on the run.
Senior underworld figures said Fadi, 35, was unlikely to end up at the wrong end of a gun.
“He got along with everyone, he was well respected, everyone liked him,” one said.
But another well-informed criminal said Fadi had recently begun to try to carve his niche in Sydney’s underworld. “He’s been getting a reputation, making a lot of noise, and not everyone liked it,” he said.
Two other underworld sources said Fadi was owed money and might have been shot as a means of escaping a debt. A former bikie, understood to owe money to people associated with Michael and Sam, had been refusing to pay, they said.
The shooting could also be related to Fadi’s claimed involvement in a drug syndicate allegedly run by Michael Ibrahim.
When Michael was jailed, Fadi, along with the Kings Cross operator Todd O’Connor – who was later murdered – and another underworld figure, allegedly took control of the syndicate.
The three were good friends and could often be seen training together at the City Gym in Darlinghurst.
Fadi had recently returned from an overseas trip when the Sydney Morning Herald reported the discovery of $2.9 million in the kitchen ceiling of his sister’s South Wentworthville home.
In a coming Supreme Court hearing, the NSW Crime Commission is expected to allege the money belonged to Michael and Fadi Ibrahim and was the proceeds of crime.
Sydney’s underworld has become a battleground in recent months as bikie gangs vie to take over territories vacated by older criminals.
The war broke into the open on March 22 when Comanchero and Hells Angels members clashed at Sydney Airport, leaving Anthony Zervas bludgeoned to death.
Links have been made between Friday night’s attack at Castle Cove, during which at least five shots were fired at Ibrahim from a silenced revolver, and two well-known underworld killings – Milad Sande in 2005 and O’Connor last year.
Sande was murdered by unknown killers the same year Michael Ibrahim allegedly took over his amphetamine importation and distribution syndicate. When Michael went to jail in late 2007, O’Connor, Fadi and other underworld figures are claimed to have carried on the syndicate.
Sande was the cousin of a Bandidos Blacktown chapter member, Danny. His uncle, also Milad, one of Sydney’s biggest heroin dealers, appeared at the Wood royal commission.
Source: TheAge.com.au
New crime gang laws ‘useless’
TOUGH new laws brought in to crack down on crime gang violence in NSW are useless if not used, the state opposition says as police fear reprisal attacks after another gangland shooting.
Fadi Ibrahim, was shot five times, and his girlfriend once, when ambushed by a gunman as they sat in a black Lamborghini outside his Castle Cove home in Sydney’s north on Friday night.
Mr Ibrahim, 35, was hit in the arm, chest and stomach when a weapon was fired through the car window about 11.25pm (AEST) and his 23-year-old girlfriend suffered a leg wound while parked outside his home in Neerim Road, Castle Cove.
He remains in a serious but stable condition after undergoing surgery four times in Royal North Shore Hospital, while his girlfriend was discharged on Saturday after having a bullet removed from her leg.
Fadi Ibrahim, an associate of the Notorious bikie gang, is the younger brother of Kings Cross identity John Ibrahim, who controls several nightclubs.
Another older brother, Sam Ibrahim, is a former senior member of the Nomads bikie club, which split in 2007 to form Notorious.
Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell said the latest act of violence showed police and the NSW government needed to start using their new powers to crack down on crime gangs.
A raft of tough new laws were brought in soon after a bikie brawl at Sydney Airport in March resulted in the death of one man.
This includes giving police the power to ask the Court to declare gangs crime organisations and to stop gang members associating with each other.
“What I’m concerned about is … police now say (Friday’s shooting) is gang-related and two months after declared organisation legislation was passed by the NSW parliament it’s yet to be implemented,” Mr O’Farrell told reporters on Sunday.
“This is a state government that introduced the tough legislation that’s needed to tackle gangs, whether they’re bikie or others in this state, but to date has failed to use the declared organisation powers to start cracking down on those … engaged in this type of violence.”
Residents say they heard muffled shots and believe a silencer was used in the gang-style hit.
Police are refusing to comment on their investigation into the shooting, but former NSW police assistant commissioner Clive Small has warned to expect retaliation.
“It would be a very brave or stupid decision to shoot a member of the Ibrahim family in this way,” Mr Small told News Ltd.
“If Fadi survives, he will no doubt identify his attackers.
“And I’m sure that he would know who was behind it.”
However, the family is understood to have called for calm, with John Ibrahim saying there will not be any retaliation by or on behalf of the family.
Police say they have visited the Castle Cove home in the past but will not reveal why.
Source: News.com.au
Sydney gang war escalates following Castle Cove shooting
SYDNEY’s gang war escalated to new heights yesterday with the younger brother of Kings Cross figure John Ibrahim shot five times outside his home.
Police believe the attack on Fadi Ibrahim in his car outside his Castle Cove home on Sydney’s North Shore late on Friday night will spark a chain of revenge shootings between warring bikie gangs, The Sunday Telegraph reports.
Ibrahim, an associate of the Notorious bikie gang, was seated in his black Lamborghini with his 23-year-old girlfriend when a lone gunman, who had been waiting on the golf course across the road, walked over and shot him five times in the stomach, chest and arm through the car window.
His girlfriend, Shayda, was shot in her leg. Yesterday, two police officers guarded the door of the Intensive Care Unit at Royal North Shore Hospital where Ibrahim was fighting for his life after “hours” of surgery.
Former NSW assistant police commissioner Clive Small warned there would be retribution for the shooting.
He said: “It would be a very brave or stupid decision to shoot a member of the Ibrahim family in this way. If Fadi survives, he will no doubt identify his attackers.
“And I’m sure that he would know who was behind it.”
At least 40 bikie associates and friends of the Ibrahim brothers gathered in support of Fadi at the hospital yesterday.
They were aggressive and hostile when approached by The Sunday Telegraph.
But a family friend said: “With all this s*** happening there’s going to be a big hurt coming up.”
John Ibrahim, 38, a Kings Cross nightclub promoter, is the most high-profile member of the Ibrahim family.
In the past, he has been the subject of hundreds of police intelligence reports. Ibrahim has consistently denied the allegation put to him during the Wood royal commission in 1996 that he was the “lifeblood of the drugs industry of Kings Cross”.
John Ibrahim has never been convicted of a criminal offence.
His three brothers, Hassan (Sam), 43, Fadi, 35, and Michael, 30, are said to have amassed “many powerful enemies”. Sam Ibrahim is a former branch president of the Nomads motorcycle club, which splintered in 2007 to form a new club, Notorious.
He denies any link to Notorious or to drugs.
Underworld sources believe the attack may have been designed to send a message to Fadi’s older brother, John.
They warned that John may be the next target. Police sources told of how John Ibrahim remained calm as he was delivered the news by officers shortly after the attack.
The attack is understood to have been carried out with a calm, cold precision, with witnesses telling police the gunman turned around and walked away, without running, after he finished discharging the gun.
It is believed a silencer was used in the attack. The gunman calmly walked out of the golf course when Fadi pulled up in his car just before 11.30pm on Friday night and unloaded the weapon. Officers said yesterday investigators were aware of who carried out the attack and were likely to arrest the assailant in the imminent future.
Police sources, meanwhile, claim that Fadi has also been listed in police intelligence files.
John, however, has strongly maintained he has no dealings with the criminal world and all his earnings are completely legitimate. For his part, Fadi has described himself as a construction developer.
Mr Small said the Ibrahim power-base was now under threat. He added: “If there are no reprisals, it simply sends a message to others who might have a disagreement or dispute that the Ibrahims are now vulnerable to attack.”
A 17-year-old resident heard the young woman crying out in pain and immediately called an ambulance, potentially saving Mr Ibrahim’s life. A police officer from the North Shore Local Area Command arrived at the scene and performed CPR in a bid to revive him.
North Shore Acting Superintendent Peter Yeomans said all possible steps were being taken to minimise further violence.
“At the moment we’re asking for assistance from the public in relation to this brutal and violent crime. Police are always mindful of reprisal attacks in relation to victims such as these,” he said.
Officers speculate it is the third in a series of attacks that has already left two other men, former Nomads bikie Todd O’Connor and Bandidos associate Milad Sande, dead.
Fadi is known to maintain one of the lowest profiles among the Ibrahim brothers.
Source: News.com.au
Shooting victim Ibrahim ‘faces amputation’
Sydney nightclub identity Fadi Ibrahim may have his arm amputated due to severe gunshot wounds as speculation mounts that a methamphetamine “cook” with bikie links was responsible for his shooting.
The Daily Telegraph reports Ibrahim also faces a lifetime of problems with his digestive system after he had part of his intestines removed during surgery on Sunday.
The younger brother of nightclub king John Ibrahim has remained in an induced coma while a steady stream of visitors — reportedly including Adam and David Freeman, the sons of late racing identity George — have made visits to Royal North Shore Hospital.
It is expected Ibrahim will be brought out of his coma this weekend, at which stage police are likely to intensify their investigation into who shot him.
The Sydney Morning Herald claims a former bikie and methamphetamine manufacturer is a primary focus of the enquiry and has also been the most discussed suspect amongst underworld figures.
The drug cook is also a suspect in an apparent attack on fellow Kings Cross figure Alan Sarkis, who reportedly dined with Ibrahim at the swanky harbourside Catalina restaurant on the night of the shooting.
A vehicle parked outside the apartment where Sarkis was sleeping in July last year was damaged by a pipe bomb and fired upon with an automatic weapon.
Both attacks are believed to be linked to large monetary loans.
Sourece: NineMSN.com.au
Ibrahim lawyer wants cover-up
The nightclub boss John Ibrahim might be known as “king of the Cross” and make regular appearances in the social pages alongside the likes of Paris Hilton, but he has apparently discovered the importance of religious modesty after the shooting of his brother at the weekend. Issuing a statement on behalf of the Ibrahim family, his lawyer, Stephen Alexander, attempted to put off media from photographing family members visiting Fadi Ibrahim in Royal North Shore Hospital on Saturday as they were wearing headscarves.
“Publishing women wearing their religious attire would offer no further insight into the incident and could potentially draw unnecessary attention to their religious beliefs,” Alexander wrote to media organisations. He also requested the media respect the privacy of Fadi Ibrahim’s girlfriend, Shayda Bastani Rad, who was seated in the passenger seat of Ibrahim’s black Lamborghini, but for noticeably different reasons: “Publishing her name and image would serve no purpose apart from compromising her rehabilitation.” However, Bastani Rad appeared significantly less publicity shy when posing for the modelling shots, apparently taken at a Kings Cross nightclub, which were splashed across the pages of Sydney newspapers yesterday as she declared that she “saw nothing” and wished it would “all just blow over”. Appropriately, the website for Alexanders Lawyers is at www.alibi.com.au.
Source: SMH.com.au
Fadi Ibrahim clings to life after being shot
By Adam Walters
June 11, 2009 12:00amWITH every new day hope continues to build for the family of Fadi Ibrahim, six days after a gunman attempted to kill him outside his North Shore home.
Ibrahim, 35, remained in an induced coma – in a critical but stable condition – after undergoing a series of scans yesterday at Royal North Shore Hospital.
Police are maintaining a 24-hour guard in the hospital’s intensive care unit and family, including his brother John and sister Maha Sayour, have kept up an around-the-clock vigil.
A hospital spokesman said she was unaware of any immediate plans by surgeons to amputate Fadi’s arm, hit at close range when the gunman struck outside the victim’s $2 million house in Castle Cove on Friday night.
As the Middle Eastern organised crime squad and Chatswood detectives examined forensic evidence and interviewed witnesses, squad commander Superintendent Debbie Wallace said an arrest was not imminent “unless you can tell us who did it”.
“There’s a lot of work to do,” Supt Wallace said.
An underworld source told The Daily Telegraph that nightclubs operated by the Ibrahim family in Kings Cross had been threatened by a bikie gang wanting their turf.
“This gang was up in the Cross demanding respect,” he said, adding the same gang was responsible for a number of recent shootings.
Police said they were also investigating speculation that Fadi’s wealth rose dramatically in recent years through alleged links to amphetamine manufacture and a loan-sharking operation.
Source: Daily Telegraph
The crooks are rock solid, but the hitmen suck
By Chopper Read – June 13, 2009
BANG, bang you’re dead. One in the guts and one in the head. Start the car and let’s rock ‘n’ roll. Big blondes, cocaine, party and cheers.
One handgun, one box of shells, one hire car, one list of names and addresses. A hundred grand and a long weekend and your troubles are over, OK!
Boys that’s how easy it is. What’s all the fuss about?
Four shots in Hells Angel Peter Zervas and five in Fadi Ibrahim, brother of Kings Cross identity John Ibrahim.
How can you shoot anyone that many times and not kill him and leave him alive to come after you?
Good killers seem impossible to find in Sydney. Maybe it’s time to ring Melbourne, where I’m from, and import some good help.
If I was going to shoot the head of a bikie gang, or whatever, I’d make damn sure he was dead before I walked away. But this isn’t so much a war between the bikies. It is a war between two cultural clans that have hated each other for hundreds of years.
I could explain the real historical reasons but they’re probably not fit to print in a family newspaper.
Before I get carried away with why the Greeks hate the Muslims, what about those weak bikies.
The one good thing about them is that lot don’t seem to be giving each other up. Which is a breath of fresh air, not going Crown’s evidence against each other. When I was charged with shooting Syd Collins, the national leader of the Outlaws Motor Cycle Club, Syd couldn’t stop talking.
He gave me up in the Supreme Court in Tasmania and I got sentenced under the Dangerous Criminals Act, never to be released.
So I am surprised and pleased to hear that Sydney crims, while not being the best shots in the world and the world’s worst hitmen, are at least solid crooks who stick staunch in police stations.
My hat is off to both Zervas and Ibrahim for copping four and five shots respectively and keeping their mouths shut.
Sydney invented the drive-by shooting, its underworld can claim that. But you do produce a second rate, poor class of hitman.
Bye for now.
Source: Chopper Read for Daily Telegraph
John Ibrahim, the Teflon man of Kings Cross
John Ibrahim, the Teflon man of Kings Cross, looks after his own, writes Janet Fife-Yeomans
HEADING towards midnight, Kings Cross is heaving. Strip club spruikers, muscled doormen, pimps, prostitutes, drunks, dealers and spivs prowl the pavements. Cars cruise past along Darlinghurst Rd, looking for action.
Beneath the neon lights of one strip joint, someone is in trouble. He’s being stood over by two men, pushing and shoving and itching for a blue. What saves him is that he is a friend of John Ibrahim. Ibrahim wades in, floors one of them with a punch and has the other punk pinned against the wall. Then from behind his back, the punk whips out a folded newspaper that falls away to reveal a kitchen knife.
None of Ibrahim’s razor-sharp reflexes, honed through years of martial arts training, can help him now. He feels the cold steel of the knife slice through the skin of his stomach. All he can remember is his warm blood running down his legs and filling up his shoes.
The next few minutes follow in a blur. Two of his mates pick him up and, shouting for the crowds to move aside, carry him along the street towards St Vincent’s Hospital as the ambulance races to meet them. The paramedics declare him clinically dead as they fight to save his life. Ibrahim has not only been stabbed, he has been gutted. The knife sliced through his liver, punctured a lung and ripped out his intestines.
For three weeks he lies unconscious in intensive care, followed by six months in a hospital bed. It takes 5000 stitches, internally and externally, to close the wounds. Twenty-four years later, Ibrahim’s torso still bears the scar, like a zip from his belly up to his chest.
For a while after the stabbing, Ibrahim wore a band around the top of his arm which held a small triangular leather pouch. He has said the pouch, a gift from his grandparents, held “family shit”. He wore it as his talisman because, he said, it kept his enemies away.
It worked like a charm. Apart from a conviction and $500 fine for assault and losing his driver’s licence, he has never been in trouble. Like shit off a shovel, nothing sticks to John Ibrahim.
John Ibrahim tells a story as if he is lighting a blue touch paper and standing well back. He throws out the facts as if they are pieces of bait, then sits in the corner and watches who bites.
He likes to watch people, read them, see how they react. It is one of the ways he keeps himself one step up on everyone else and it is how he toys with the media. That the facts are often fluid only seems to add to his enjoyment.
The story seems to have begun when his parents came to Australia from Lebanon to visit family and decided to stay. Older brother Hassam “Sam” Ibrahim was born in 1966 and John Houssam Ibrahim on August 25, 1970, although his date of birth, along with his middle name, fluctuates on the business records that hold together his empire.
They settled in Parramatta where his mum felt at home but his dad, who had been a well-known businessman in Lebanon, couldn’t speak the language and hated it. His father went back and forward to Lebanon while fathering another four children during his stays in Sydney: Fadi Donny Ibrahim, now 35, Michael Ibrahim, 30, and their two sisters, the oldest who married a distant relative overseas and the youngest, Maha Sayour, 32, who lives in South Wentworthville.
In one of his first media forays, Ibrahim wrote a chapter for a 1993 book called People Of The Cross: True Stories From People Who Live And Work In Kings Cross.
“My parents are Muslim but I think I’m the worst Muslim ever made,” he wrote.
“I don’t like family get-togethers at all. Being a Lebanese family, you have to kiss about 50 people before you sit down to eat. It’s just not worth the food, no matter how good the food is.”
Ibrahim said his father finally returned to Lebanon for good where “he was what you would call missing”. He appears to have since been found and is back in Australia, although he has little contact with his family.
Ibrahim met the woman he has called the love of his life, Meagan, at a Blue Light Disco while still at school but they appear to have split up in 1995. He has a teenage son who has been attending an exclusive Sydney private school but without using the Ibrahim surname, to protect him from the controversy that bedevils the rest of the family.
That 15-year-old young gun who scrapped on the pavements of Kings Cross has become the chisel-faced, tanned and sharply-dressed king of the Cross. The king of cool. It has been a while since John Ibrahim had to use his own fists to sort out his problems. Almost everywhere he goes, his bodyguard, “Tongan Sam”, goes first, making sure his boss is safe, calling ahead for the bulletproof black Bentley to be waiting.
When they do the rounds of the 17 Kings Cross clubs that Ibrahim has an interest in, the doormen almost bow and the young Lebanese wannabes waiting in the queues all want him to notice them. They want to be like him and why wouldn’t they?
The man who left school as soon as he could and bought into his first nightclub, The Tunnel, at the age of 19, now lives in a clifftop mansion on George St, Dover Heights, which he owns along with other properties through a maze of companies, including Edge Point Holdings. The mansion, with an infinity-edge swimming pool, is in the middle of an $800,000 renovation.
Ibrahim is a fitness freak who says he doesn’t do drugs, a two-pot screamer who doesn’t like to drink. But he loves travelling to the bright lights of Las Vegas and Asia, often treating his mates to trips with him. On one tour, he was joined by brother Fadi, Nomads bikie Todd O’Connor and Mehmet Gulasi, Paris Hilton’s Sydney driver.
Nightclub security manager O’Connor was shot and killed last year and Gulasi was arrested on New Year’s Day carrying drugs in a car police alleged was registered to John Ibrahim. He was later convicted and fined $500 for possessing 2.5g of cocaine and driving without a licence, for which he was fined $1000 and banned for three months.
Like brother John did 24 years ago, Fadi is now fighting for his life in hospital after being shot while sitting in his Lambourghini in an ambush outside his high-security Castle Cove home last week. Ibrahim has said he learned early on that it is not what you know, but who you know – on both sides of the fence. He was a driver for the late crime boss, George Freeman, and paid his respects to his mate, Lennie “Mr Big” McPherson.
At the same time he was holidaying with corrupt cop Charlie Staunton and had a brief tryst with Kings Cross policewoman Wendy Hatfield, who joined him on a scuba-diving trip. Hatfield strenuously denies the allegations.
It was drug dealer Bill Bayeh who thrust Ibrahim into the criminal limelight when tapes of him were played at the 1995 Police Royal Commission. Bayeh was taped saying he wanted Ibrahim, his brother Sam and their mate, Russell Townsend, out of the Cross because they were threatening his drugs empire.
Ibrahim cheerily denied allegations he was the new lifeblood of the Cross drug trade, as he has denied countless other allegations since, beating a charge of murder and of threatening a witness.
He was described in court proceedings several years ago as being “the subject of 546 police intelligence reports in relation to his involvement in drugs, organised crime and association with outlaw motorcycle gangs”.
He has said that what is important to him are family first, his mates second.
With their father overseas, he became a dad to brothers Michael and Fadi. Not a day has gone by this week when he hasn’t visited Fadi at Royal North Shore Hospital.
He is also a father figure to George Freeman’s two sons, David and Adam.
Ibrahim’s Teflon finish has rubbed off on some of his family members – just this year, police found $3.8 million stashed in the ceiling of Ms Sayour’s home. It allegedly belonged to Michael and Fadi. Fadi Ibrahim has had several hundred thousand dollars seized by the NSW Crime Commission. No one has been charged over the money in either case.
Sam Ibrahim is a former branch president of the Nomads motorcycle club, which splintered in 2007 to form a new club, Notorious. He denies any link to Notorious.
However, Michael Ibrahim is currently serving 6½ years for killing Robin Nassour, the brother of Fat Pizza comedian George Nassour.
In that 1993 book, John Ibrahim gave an insight into what drives him: “Society conditions you from the minute you go to school to be a good citizen, work and keep quiet. You live out your life, pay all your debts to the government, and you really haven’t enjoyed any of it. It’s the people who don’t listen to that, the ones that break away, who let their minds grow, who end up getting somewhere.”
Source: Daily Telegraph
Ibrahims keep code of silence
June 14, 2009
IBRAHIM family members have been interviewed by police, but have refused to help identify suspects in the shooting a week ago of their brother Fadi.
A police source said the investigation was further complicated by the brothers’ long list of enemies.
“There are that many options that could be legitimate,” the source said. A special joint task force called Strike Force Proudfoot has been set up to investigate the shooting at 11.30pm on June 5 that left Fadi fighting for his life.
Officers have been frustrated by a wall of silence surrounding the Ibrahim family, despite the fact prompt police action at the scene of the shooting possibly saved Fadi’s life.
Senior police have been in regular contact with John Ibrahim during the week, but sources said the 38-year-old had not divulged any information. Ibrahim last week changed all the security codes on his house for increased protection.
A close friend told The Sunday Telegraph the family believe their homes have been bugged by police.
Ibrahim, who is always protected by his bodyguard “Tongan Sam”, told friends he could not understand why his brother had sat in his car outside his house.
“It’s rocked them and they don’t understand why his car was parked out the front and why he didn’t drive just straight in,” the friend said. “They just can’t believe he of all of them copped it.”
Fadi’s mother has spent the week by her son’s bedside, as he fought for his life. “She’s been up at the hospital a lot. She’s up there praying,” the friend said.
A junior officer from the Chatswood police station was the first to arrive on the scene and performed vital CPR on Fadi.
Police had no intelligence prior to the shooting that a hit on an Ibrahim was imminent. The joint task force is a collaboration between police from the Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad, who are leading the investigation, and officers from the North Shore local area command.
Based at Chatswood, team members have taken part in rolling, high-level briefings with senior officers to formulate a strategy for the case. At least a dozen detectives are attached to the investigation, which is said to have made “significant inroads”.
A source close to the police case said that during one briefing, Proudfoot team members were warned by their commanding officer, Detective Inspector Peter Yeomans, to expect a “protracted” investigation.
The officers were also specifically instructed to treat the shooting as any other attack on two innocent civilians.
Another officer close to the investigation told The Sunday Telegraph that allegations of bikie involvement, drugs and loan-sharking as a motive for the shooting would be dealt with “as they arise”.
Police have been keeping in daily contact with surgeons treating Fadi at the Royal North Shore Hospital amid serious concerns for his condition, which is now serious but stable.
A spokesperson for the hospital said Fadi’s condition had improved in the past few days, but would not comment further on efforts to save one of his arms.
Detective Superintendent Deb Wallace, commander of the Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad, said police were doing everything in their power to minimise the chance of reprisals.
“Any public act of violence such as this is of great concern to police, and we will continue to dedicate all necessary resources to the investigation,” she said.
“Anyone with information about the incident who has not yet spoken with detectives is urged to contact their local police or Crime Stoppers.”
With his girlfriend, Shayda Bastani Rad, unable to identify the gunman, police are fearful their investigation will suffer a serious setback if Fadi, like his brothers, refuses to provide a statement.
Members of the Ibrahim family had been interviewed during the days after the shooting but had provided “nothing so far” on who could be behind the attack, the police source said.
A statement by John Ibrahim, 38, the brother considered the family’s head, said he had “absolute faith” in the police investigation.
A statement read out by his solicitor, Stephen Alexander, last week said: “My client wishes to dispel any speculation that there will be any retaliation on, or on behalf of, the Ibrahim family.”
John Ibrahim has refused to speak with the media. “John just cares about the rehabilitation of his brother,” Mr Alexander said on Friday.
Asked to comment on whether the family was co-operating with police, Mr Alexander said: “I don’t know. I will speak to John and, if he wants to say something, he will.”
Court records reveal John, Michael and Fadi Ibrahim have had several encounters with the law, although John has not been convicted of a criminal offence. He was convicted of assault as a minor.
Records show that in October, 1998, the director of public prosecutions dropped a charge of murder against John Ibrahim.
In June of that year, proceedings against John on two charges of common assault and one of threatening a person with intent to influence a witness were dropped.
In May, 2005, proceedings were also dropped against John on two charges of perverting the course of justice and one of threatening to cause injury to a potential juror or witness.
Fadi, 35, was sentenced in June, 2002 to two years’ periodic detention, with a one-year parole, after pleading guilty to a charge of intent to influence a witness.
The youngest member of the Ibrahim family, Michael, 30, is serving a six-and-a-half-year prison sentence for manslaughter.
Michael and his cousins, Mouhamed and Sleiman Tajjour, pleaded guilty to killing Robin Nassour, the brother of former television star George Nassour, in January, 2006.
A fourth man connected to the crime, Faouzi Abou Jibal, was shot dead while on the run from police after Robin Nassour’s death.
Fadi’s girlfriend, Shayda Bastani Rad, was engaged to Abou Jibal at the time.
The attack on Robin Nassour was sparked when he and his brother were refused entry to a nightclub guarded by the doorman, Michael Ibrahim.
A fight broke out after Robin made a rude gesture to his brother, George, which was interpreted by Michael as being directed at him.
The brothers were later lured to an apartment block at Chiswick, in Sydney’s inner western suburbs, where they were set upon by the group and stabbed.
Robin Nassour died from a severed artery. George was also injured in the attack.
Michael will be eligible for parole on March 15, 2013.
Source: Daily Telegraph
Ibrahim emerges from coma after being shot five times
June 18, 2009 – 3:14PM
Investigators claim to be making “significant inroads” into the shooting of Fadi Ibrahim, as the 35-year-old has woken after almost three weeks in a coma.
Mr Ibrahim was shot five times, and his girlfriend Shayda Bastani was shot once, when they were ambushed by a gunman as they sat in a black Lamborghini outside his Castle Cove home in Sydney’s north on Friday, June 5.
He was hit in the arm, chest and stomach and Ms Bastani, 23, suffered a leg wound when a weapon was fired through the car window about 11.25pm (AEST) while it was parked in Neerim Road.
Mr Ibrahim was taken to Royal North Shore Hospital where he underwent emergency surgery.
He remained under police guard today.
Detectives from Strike Force Proudfoot, established to investigate the shooting, spoke briefly with Mr Ibrahim yesterday.
His continued serious medical condition meant detectives could only spend a short amount of time with him at the hospital, Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad commander Detective Superintendent Debbie Wallace said.
“Due to continuing investigations police are not able to elaborate on the nature of the information discussed,” police said in a statement.
“Detectives are continuing to follow strong lines of inquiry and have made significant inroads into the shooting.
“Investigations are continuing and detectives are keeping an open mind about the circumstances of the incident and the man remains under police guard in hospital.”
Fadi Ibrahim, an associate of the Notorious bikie gang, is the younger brother of Kings Cross identity John Ibrahim, who controls several nightclubs.
Another older brother, Sam Ibrahim, is a former senior member of the Nomads bikie club, which split in 2007 to form Notorious.
It is not known if the June 5 shooting is bikie gang related.
Source: The Age
Taxpayers foot bill for Fadi Ibrahim’s police protection
22/Jun/2009
Investigations are continuing and detectives are keeping an open mind about the circumstances of the incident and the man remains under police guard in hospital.
Taxpayers are reportedly paying $120 an hour for the police protection of shot underworld figure Fadi Ibrahim.
According to News Ltd, the 16 days he’s spent in Royal North Shore Hospital has already cost $46,000.
The around-the-clock operation for the brother of Kings Cross nightclub owner John Ibrahim, is expected to continue throughout his lengthy recovery.
The $2880 a day bill is paid despite the 35-year-old having suspected links to loan sharking and the receipt of proceeds of crime.
Mr Ibrahim was shot five times, and his girlfriend Shayda Bastani was shot once, when they were ambushed by a gunman as they sat in a black Lamborghini outside his Castle Cove home in Sydney’s north on Friday, June 5.
He was hit in the arm, chest and stomach and Ms Bastani, 23, suffered a leg wound when a weapon was fired through the car window about 11.25pm (AEST) while it was parked in Neerim Road.
Detectives from Strike Force Proudfoot, established to investigate the shooting, spoke briefly with Mr Ibrahim last Wednesday, after he woke from an induced coma.
“Detectives are continuing to follow strong lines of inquiry and have made significant inroads into the shooting,” a police statement said last week.
“Investigations are continuing and detectives are keeping an open mind about the circumstances of the incident and the man remains under police guard in hospital.”
Source: LiveNews.com.au
Ibrahim shooting: brother pledges ‘police guard money’ to charity
June 22, 2009 – 5:12PM
Kings Cross night club baron John Ibrahim has offered to donate the equivalent cost of providing police protection for his wounded brother in hospital to charity.
An angry Mr Ibrahim said today he was upset at a Sydney newspaper report which said NSW taxpayers so far have had to foot a $46,000 bill for a police guard on his 35-year-old brother Fadi.
Fadi is recovering in the Royal North Shore Hospital after being shot five times by a gunman outside his Castle Cove home 17 days ago.
Mr Ibrahim, 38, said in a statement issued through his solicitor Stephen Alexander that he would not allow State tax payers to foot the bill to protect his brother – estimated at $120 and hour.
“Mr John Ibrahim wishes to put on the record that the NSW tax payers will not be at a loss as he will donate the amount that it takes the NSW police to protect his brother to the Royal North Shore Hospital intensive care unit,” Mr Alexander said.
He said Fadi, who was transferred from the ICU late last week to a public ward after coming out of an induced coma after four operations to five gun shot wounds to his right arm, torso and abdomen, was “still doing it tough”.
However, Mr Alexander said: “Mr Fadi wishes to dispel any speculation about his current medical condition.
“He has advised that the operations undertaken were successful and it is not expected that he will be losing his right arm or will have to use a colostomy bag.”
Mr Alexander said that, against the wishes of the Ibrahim family, police had placed a round-the-clock guard on his brother following his admission to the hospital.
The gunman, who is still being hunted by a police strike force, struck shortly after Fadi parked his black Lamborghini outside his Neerim Road mansion at 11.30pm on Friday June 6.
His girlfriend Shayda Bastani who was sitting in the passenger seat received a single gunshot wound to her right leg.
Source: Brisbane Times
Lamborghini hit: Hells Angels link
June 22, 2009
A LINK may have emerged between the shootings of Fadi Ibrahim and Hells Angel Peter Zervas, with a well-known Comanchero now a major suspect in both cases.
The Sydney bikie is known as an “enforcer” within the Comanchero and had a public argument with Ibrahim only a week before the 35-year-old was shot.
Sources have indicated that a visit to Silverwater jail by Mr Ibrahim and the Comanchero, and a subsequent argument, may have been the spark that led to the shooting.
The pair had seen each other after visiting different people at the jail. Mr Ibrahim was there to see his older brother Hassan, or “Sam”, on remand over the alleged kidnapping of a teenage boy earlier this year.
According to one crime source, the pair started yelling at each other in front of prison guards and other visitors. “[The Comanchero] was saying, ‘It’s on, between you and me’,” the source said.
A week later, on June 5, Mr Ibrahim was shot five times as he sat in his black Lamborghini outside his Castle Cove home.
The Comanchero and the Notorious gang have been in conflict, and Notorious has been previously linked with some of the Ibrahim brothers. Mr Ibrahim had been dining with a senior member of Notorious, Alen Sarkis, at the Rose Bay restaurant, Catalina, only hours before he was shot.
The suspect is not one of the six Comanchero charged with riot and affray over the fatal March 22 airport brawl.
The Herald has previously revealed that another man, a former bikie and methamphetamine cook, is another prime suspect in the Ibrahim shooting, following bad blood over a six-figure debt.
One source said it was well-known in the underworld that the Comanchero had shot Mr Zervas, on March 29, in anticipation of expected retribution for the death of Mr Zervas’s younger brother, Anthony, during the fatal airport brawl.
Police also consider a member of the Comanchero as a major suspect in the Zervas shooting.
There are also other similarities between the shootings, with both men shot as they arrived home just before midnight by a person with a pistol. That person then ran across a road and disappeared – into a golf course at Castle Cove and a small park at Lakemba.
In the Lakemba shooting police described the gunman as having a muscular build, wearing dark clothes and with collar-length hair. No description was given of the shooter at Castle Cove. Another similarity is that both men survived what appeared to be determined attempts on their lives, suggesting the killer was probably not “professional”, sources said.
Source: Dylan Welch – WA Today
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