IT BEGAN in the winter of 2008 with tit-for-tat violence between the Hells Angels and Comanchero motorcycle clubs, a series of incidents so serious that by early 2009 it had created, in the words of the Crown prosecutor Natalie Adams, a ''perfect storm'' that culminated in a brawl at Sydney Airport and the death of Anthony Zervas.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Zervas, 29, an associate of the Hells Angels through his brother Peter, had travelled from Wollongong after getting the call from Hells Angels chapter president Derek Wainohu to meet him at the airport. In the brawl that followed, Zervas was bludgeoned with a bollard and stabbed in the chest and abdomen.
The trouble began on March 22, 2009, when Wainohu and six Comanchero happened to board the same flight, QF 430, in Melbourne, to travel to Sydney. Wainohu became worried, especially when a Comanchero, Mahmoud ''Mick'' Hawi, ''glared'' at him. Both Wainohu and the Comanchero text-messaged for reinforcements. When the plane arrived in Sydney, there was a brief scuffle at the end of the air bridge.
The group moved into the departure hall where reinforcements for both sides were waiting. Twelve Comanchero confronted five Hells Angels. A Comanchero, referring to Zervas, allegedly said: ''He's got a nug!'' (gun spelt backwards).
The brawl continued before horrified spectators. Weapons recovered later included knuckledusters, a baton and a broom handle with a sharpened end. A knife was found abandoned in a drain.
Hawi, 31, and fellow Comanchero Farres Abounader, 30, Ishmail Eken, 29, Zoran Kisacanin, 25, Christian Menzies, 29, and Usama Potrus, 29, pleaded not guilty in the Supreme Court, Parramatta, to charges of murder and associated offences of riot and affray. David Padovan, 28, the one Hells Angel facing charges, pleaded not guilty to riot and affray.
Evidence in the trial, before Justice Robert Allan Hulme, took 55 days, received 150 exhibits and heard from 165 witnesses.
Yesterday the jury found only one Comanchero, Hawi, guilty of murder, although two other Comanchero, Menzies and Abounader, cleared of murder, face retrial because the jury could not agree on whether they were guilty of manslaughter.
Eken, Potrus and Kisacanin, cleared of both murder and manslaughter, were found guilty of riot. Kisacanin, also cleared of murder and manslaughter, was found guilty along with Hawi and Menzies of affray.
David Padovan was found not guilty on both counts of riot and affray and acquitted. He walked out of the court almost immediately. A woman screamed and wept in the public gallery.
Justice Hulme will hear submissions on sentence from Hawi's counsel, Philip Dunn, SC. Menzies and Abounader will come up for mention on November 17, when Eken will be sentenced. Potrus will apply for bail today.
The Crown case was that Hawi and Menzies had struck Zervas with a bollard and Abounader had stabbed or at very least tried to stab Zervas. Abounader had allegedly said when he got into a taxi that he had ''shanked'' Zervas.
The Crown evidence was that DNA from the fingernails of Zervas matched the DNA profile of Hawi. The Crown said Menzies stabbed Zervas with a pair of scissors and that his DNA matched a sample found on Zervas's clothing near where a pair of scissors had been embedded.
The Crown said the Comanchero were part of a common agreement to kill or inflict grievous bodily harm on the Hells Angels. All the accused denied participating in the fighting or the fatal assault. When told someone had a gun, they had tried to get away.
Hawi denied anything to do with the assault or even being nearby, despite a photo showing him with Menzies facing the area where the assault occurred.
Exhibits comprised photographs and grainy security camera footage. It was difficult to make out individuals but on the Crown case far from impossible. Much of the evidence concerned what the participants were wearing or whether they had the tattoos described.
Justice Hulme told the jury that it would first have to decide whether each of the accused was involved in the fatal assault. If the jury decided the accused had, it would then have to deal with the issue of self-defence.
It would have to decide whether the accused had a ''reasonable belief'' that it was necessary to do what he did in order to protect himself or another person.
"In all the circumstances is it possible that there was a belief by the accused that it was necessary for Mr Zervas to be stabbed in the chest or abdomen or it was necessary for his head to be smashed by a bollard in order for [the accused] to defend himself or another person," the judge said.
Earlier this year, Justice Hulme sentenced four other members of the Comanchero, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter and to affray.
