A MEMBER of the notorious Chaouk crime family has been jailed for five years over a drive-by shooting targeting a member of the rival Haddara clan.
“This is not Chicago in the 1930s,” Supreme Court Justice Lex Lasry told Matwali Chaouk.
“This conduct will not be tolerated.”
Chaouk, 29 – the son of Machhour, the Chaouk family patriarch gunned down in the backyard of his Brooklyn home in August 2010 – opened fire on Sabet Haddara and two others.
A Supreme Court jury found Matwali Chaouk not guilty of attempting to murder Haddara but guilty of recklessly endangering the lives of Haddara and two other people.
Justice Lasry said Chaouk was armed with a .22 semi automatic handgun and fired a number of shots.
At least two shots hit the front windscreen of the other car. Haddara and the two other occupants escaped unharmed.
Justice Lasry said the drive-by shooting took place near shops and other motorists.
Chaouk had shown a complete lack of respect for the law and the community and whatever issues he had had with the Haddara family, violence on our streets must be deterred, the judge said.
Chaouk was jailed for five years with a non-parole period of three years.
The jury was told during Chaouk’s trial that up until June 20, 2009, members of the Chaouk and the Haddara families were generally on friendly terms.
But on June 20, 2009, Mohammed Haddara was shot dead in a park in Fifth Avenue, Altona North.
Ahmad Hablas was charged with the murder but was later acquitted.
“Following the death of Mohammed Haddara … there began a period of animosity, hostility, between the Chaouk family on the one hand and the Haddara family on the other,” prosecutor Ray Gibson told the jury.
“Not only did it involve strict members of those two families, but their immediate associates as well. Often, as you would well know, people close to one family will throw their towel in, throw their lot in, with those whom they’re closest to. So there developed a hostility between the two rival groups.”
Matwali, who was acquitted in July last year of separate gun and drug offences after a Melbourne judge ruled police had been “oppressive” in threatening to charge his mother unless he confessed, showed no emotion as he was being led away after being sentenced today.
Sabet (Sam) Haddara had been in a car with Natalie Camilleri and her boyfriend Antonio Sawan at Altona on November 15, 2009, when they were intercepted by Chaouk driving a black convertible BMW.
