A Sydney drug dealer who murdered a teenage Comanchero bikie and blamed his best friend will spend at least 21 years behind bars.
Joseph Gatt killed 18-year-old Bassil Hijazi as he sat in a parked car in Bexley, southern Sydney, in July 2013.
Gatt, 28, was sentenced in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday to a maximum 28 years in prison with a non-parole period of 21 years.
Joseph Gatt, 27, had pleaded not guilty to murdering 18-year-old Bassil Hijazi (pictured) at Bexley in south Sydney in July 2013
A jury found Gatt (centre) fired seven shots at Hijazi as he sat in a blue Mitsubishi Lancer while smoking cannabis with a friend
Gatt gave no reaction as Justice Monika Schmidt condemned Mr Hijazi’s ‘cold-blooded execution’ but could not rule on who fired the fatal shots.
Gatt testified he wasn’t even carrying a firearm, and it was his friend George Borg who pulled the trigger in a cannabis deal gone wrong.
A jury in May found him guilty, but Justice Schmidt said that exactly who unloaded a ‘hail of bullets’ hitting Mr Hijazi twice fatally in the neck and chest can’t be proved.
Borg has already been sentenced after pleading guilty to murder. He received a discount for testifying against Gatt whom he blamed for the killing.
But Justice Schmidt labelled that testimony unreliable.
‘The evidence does not establish that Mr Gatt fired the fatal shots,’ she said.
Hijazi had links to the Comanchero bikie gang, and had survived a drive-by shooting where he was shot in the neck just two weeks before his death
The Crown argued the killing came after Mr Hijazi and Gatt got into a punch-up at a convenience store earlier that year.
Gatt had also told Borg that his van had been shot at by an associate of Mr Hijazi when he was at a McDonald’s with his girlfriend, the prosecution alleged.
Mr Hijazi had survived being shot in the neck a fortnight earlier but refused to co-operate with officers trying to investigate, police said at the time.
His mother made an impassioned plea after his murder for his killer to come forward and urged police to get guns off the streets.
‘You’re not doing your job right. My son’s gone,’ she said.
The court heard Hijazi was killed in retaliation for another drive-by shooting
The prosecution previously alleged that Gatt went to the Bexley car park with Borg to find Mr Hijazi.
This followed a physical confrontation involving the teenager earlier that year, and a shooting Gatt attributed to Mr Hijazi’s associate.
Both Gatt and Borg were armed but Gatt was the only one to pull the trigger, the prosecution said.
However, Gatt testified he and Borg were in the area to deal cannabis when they approached the parked vehicle and ‘a firearm was produced against us’.
‘I braced for impact. I thought I was about to be shot,’ Gatt said while giving evidence last month.
Gatt said Borg then produced a firearm and shot at the car.
A jury found Gatt fired seven shots at Hijazi as he sat in a blue Mitsubishi Lancer while smoking cannabis with a friend.
Hijazi had links to the Comanchero bikie gang, and had survived a drive-by shooting where he was shot in the neck just two weeks before his death, the Daily Telegraph reported.
He miraculously survived after being shot on Prince Street at Bexley, only a kilometre from where he was killed on July 29.
The court heard Hijazi was killed in retaliation for another drive-by shooting.
The case has been adjourned to June 13 for a sentence hearing.