Former Comancheros boss Mick Hawi has been sentenced to three and a half years jail for his role in the 2009 Sydney Airport bikie brawl.
Hawi pleaded guilty to manslaughter in September 2014 after he successfully appealed his 2011 murder conviction in the Court of Criminal Appeal (CCA) in May 2014.
The decision was handed down in the Supreme Court this afternoon. Thus far reports have been unable to outline whether Hawi has been released. Even though his sentence is likely to take into account time served, which at June 2014, when he was bailed following the CCA decision, was around 5 years, with a head sentence which does not expire until January 2016, Hawi would likely still need to be assessed by the State Parole Authority before he can be released. Accordingly, he was taken back to the cells and remains in custody for the time being.
In the CCA decision, Chief Justice Bathurst would have acquitted Hawi of murder, but concurred with Justice Price that the conviction should be quashed, leaving the possibility of a retrial. Bathurst found that it was not open to the jury to find that Hawi actually inflicted the fatal blows on the deceased, Anthony Zervas, and that the acquittal of some of the other brawlers for murder were inconsistent with a guilty verdict for Hawi. Justice Price found that while it was open to the jury to find that Hawi laid the fatal blows, provocation should have been left to the jury, which would have returned a verdict of manslaughter, and quashed the conviction on that basis.
So ends a bloody chapter in Sydney’s recent criminal history.
Image credit: Thuy Ong and ABC News
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