Notorious criminal Bassam Hamzy linked to brutal Brothers for Life gang in Sydney
By police reporter Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop, ABC July 3, 2013, 10:02 pm
Bassam Hamzy ... before and after his conversion to Islam.
An ABC investigation has uncovered evidence that Australia's highest-security prisoner is continuing to exert power over a brutal gang which is waging a campaign of terror in suburban Sydney.
Convicted murderer Bassam Hamzy has spent almost his entire adult life in jail and has been segregated in the Goulburn Supermax high-security prison for almost the past five years.
But he retains remarkable connections in Sydney's underworld.
Hamzy and some of his relatives are believed to be the leaders of the Brothers For Life gang, which has been terrorising the Lebanese Sunni Muslim community in south-western Sydney with a spate of extortions, murders, shootings and knee-cappings.
The 34-year-old gained notoriety in 2008 when he was caught using a smuggled mobile phone to run a violent drug network from his maximum-security cell at Lithgow Jail.
But despite a police crackdown, the ABC has learned he has been able to continue his activities, gaining access to several mobile phones.
Late last year, he was discovered making calls while on transfer in Sydney's Silverwater Jail.
Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Severin says Hamzy barricaded his cell with court documents and flushed the mobile phone down a toilet before guards forced their way inside.
"He has been doing that, as I understand, to continue to engage in illicit behaviour outside prison," Mr Severin said.
"That is a very serious matter and certainly one that we are extremely concerned about."
Authorities say Hamzy has been working the system, taking advantage of reduced security when he has to be transferred between jails.
Fellow prisoners claim Hamzy's cronies have smuggled phones into jail by standing over prison guards, threatening to harm their families and paying them for their help.
But Mr Severin says authorities have no evidence guards' safety is at risk.
"We're dealing with a person who's very manipulative, he's very bright," Mr Severin said.
"I certainly consider that he has the propensity to try to manipulate and stand over people. What we need to do is to ensure it doesn't happen."
Disputes erupt on Sydney's streets
Police say Hamzy has also had disputes in jail which have spilled out onto Sydney's streets.
Detectives allege a former fellow inmate who had fallen out with Bassam Hamzy tried to kill his aunt in March.
Nearly 30 gunshots were pumped through Maha Hamze's front door at Auburn, while her young daughter was just metres away.
Ms Hamze was left in a wheelchair, with up to eight gunshot wounds to her legs.
Twenty minutes later, the Brothers For Life allegedly shot at the home of a Hamzy family rival in a mistaken act of retaliation.
One of the bullets went into a neighbour's house and landed centimetres from the head of an 11-year-old boy.
Hamzy sentenced over crime network
The details of Hamzy's case on his sentence for his 2008 dial-a-crime activity.
Hamzy had been sentenced in the District Court in May to at least another 15-and-a-half years in jail for his crime spree, which was recorded on telephone intercepts.
Police had listened in as Hamzy and relatives trafficked $250,000 worth of drugs from Sydney to Melbourne every week.
He also masterminded a plot to have his brother shot and organised two violent kidnappings and a drive-by shooting.
Transcripts referred to in the District Court judgement show how Hamzy directed the torture over the phone.
In one call, he instructed a henchman to stand over a man with a knife, telling the victim: "They're going to cut your fingers off. After they cut your fingers off, I'm going to cut your ears off."
Hamzy told another crony who had carried out a second kidnapping: "He's lucky I don't put a bullet in his head."
"If I ever have to come up there again, I'm gonna cut all his fingers off. Next time I will take his ears and make them into a necklace," he said.
