Underworld figure Masood Zakaria’s deportation from Turkey was illegal, prosecutors have conceded, as the alleged kingpin pushes to have murder charges against him thrown out over allegations the Australian Federal Police facilitated his “kidnapping” and return to Sydney.
The NSW Supreme Court heard on Thursday morning that the 31-year-old’s forced removal in late 2023 was not permitted under Turkish law because of his pending appeal against the country’s decision to deport him. He was arrested at a seaside villa earlier that year.
The concession looms as a significant factor in Zakaria’s unprecedented legal challenge to have a raft of serious charges, including murder, dismissed.
Zakaria’s legal team is seeking a permanent stay of proceedings against him after alleging AFP officers facilitated his illegal deportation from Turkey in a recovery operation akin to a kidnapping that constituted an abuse of process. The timing of his deportation is a major focus of the legal challenge.
If their application is successful, the charges against Zakaria, including for the murders of father and son Toufik Hamze, 64, and Salim Hamze, 18, and a conspiracy to murder gangland rival Ibrahem Hamze at the height of an underworld feud in 2021, will not be prosecuted.
Trials for those offences were last year vacated after Zakaria’s lawyers levelled the allegations at the AFP. The AFP maintains its actions were lawful.
The legal saga has cast doubt on the prosecutions of several other individuals wanted by Australian authorities and returned to the country in similar circumstances. The individuals, who cannot legally be identified, were among the highest value targets for law enforcement agencies at the time of their deportations.
Prosecutors on Thursday flagged that an expert in Turkish law would be called to give evidence on the legality of Zakaria’s deportation. Zakaria is being held at Goulburn Supermax, Australia’s highest security correctional facility.
Zakaria’s application is expected to run for two weeks and hear evidence from some of the country’s most senior organised crime investigators.
Zakaria – an alleged high-ranking member of Sydney’s Alameddine crime family when he fled Australia in 2021 – was returned in December 2023 onboard a chartered Airbus A319 his lawyers claim cost the AFP more than $1 million. A team of six ex-military contractors working for Hart International, a multinational security and risk management firm, escorted him back to Australia.
Skytraders, an aviation company contracted by the AFP to provide the plane with which Zakaria was deported, on Thursday lost a bid for its employees to be excused from giving evidence in court.
The court heard that evidence from the employees involved could incriminate them and expose them to possible criminal charges in Turkey, including deprivation of liberty, if Zakaria’s deportation and detainment are found to be unlawful.
Opposing the application, Zakaria’s barrister, Julia Roy, SC, said there was no evidence to suggest the employees risked facing criminal proceedings or were under investigation in Turkey.
Daniel Colborne, one of the pilots who flew Zakaria back to Australia, told the court that heavily armed Turkish officials kept the 31-year-old and the Hart International team onboard the plane for several days after it was grounded when it struck a flock of birds. Heavily armed officers escorted Zakaria onto a replacement plane, Colborne said.
Hart International Australia’s chief executive previously told the court the company’s personnel did not restrain passengers, before being shown images appearing to show Zakaria wearing plastic restraints around his wrists. Colborne said only the captain of a flight has authority to restrain a passenger.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard the AFP encouraged Turkish authorities to deport Zakaria weeks before his arrest on the country’s south-west coast.
In an email sent in late 2022 and read in court, then-AFP detective sergeant Scott Murphy told NSW Police investigators – whom he called “Zakaria chasers” – that the agency would engage with the Turkish National Police to have Zakaria “blacklisted” and removed from the country because his activities meant he posed too high a risk to continue residing there.
The hearing before Justice Edward Muston continues.
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