The grieving widow of slain former bikie Mahmoud ‘Mick’ Hawi angrily confronted a Sydney property developer and threatened to kill him hours after her husband’s underworld execution, a Supreme Court jury has heard.
‘But I didn’t mean it,’ Carolina Gonzalez said on Tuesday of her stern words with Eddie Haragli.
‘I was angry. My husband had just died.’
Carolina Gonzalez, the grieving widow of slain former bikie Mahmoud ‘Mick’ Hawi, angrily confronted a Sydney property developer and threatened to kill him hours after her husband’s underworld execution, a Supreme Court jury has heard.
Mr Hawi (right), the former Comancheros national president, was shot in the head several times moments after leaving Fitness First Rockdale in February 2018
Mr Hawi, the former Comancheros national president was shot in the head several times moments after leaving Fitness First Rockdale and getting into his black Mercedes on February 15, 2018.
One of his former friends, Yusuf Guney Nazlioglu, 38, is accused of firing the fatal shots before escaping in a car driven by Jamal Eljaidi, 32.
Both have pleaded not guilty to murder in the NSW Supreme Court.
Ms Gonzalez, giving evidence on the opening day of the trial, said her husband had done very well in his building business after his release from prison in 2015.
But, under cross-examination, she denied he was actually in the business of ‘wanting money off people for favours’ or that he had been trying to extort half a million dollars out of Mr Haragli.
Instead, Ms Gonzalez said the property developer had offered the money to Mr Hawi.
Speaking of her threat on the night of her husband’s murder, she said she felt that with the information Mr Hawi had given her, a cousin of Mr Haragli’s was ‘the reason Yusuf was involved in the murder’.
Justice Robert Allan Hulme later warned the jury that Ms Gonzalez’s reasoning was ‘complete conjecture’, wasn’t part of the Crown’s allegations and they should ‘put that out of your minds’.
Nazlioglu denies being the balaclava-clad gunman who ambushed Mr Hawi in the gym carpark, with his barrister telling the jury on Tuesday others had a greater motive to kill.
Jamal Eljaidi arrives at the Downing Centre Court on Tuesday. He has pleaded not guilty to the murder of former Comancheros national president Mahmoud ‘Mick’ Hawi
But the Crown alleges Nazlioglu was motivated to kill Mr Hawi after the formerly close friends fell out.
The pair had spent most days together in 2016 but the relationship soured during a fishing trip to the Central Coast in the summer of 2016/17, when Mr Hawi called his wife.
‘Mike said he had had a disagreement with Yusuf and that he’d asked him to go back to Sydney,’ Ms Gonzalez said.
‘He said he did something that embarrassed me with someone … I said ‘OK I’m sure you’ll get over it.’
‘My husband was very forgiving.’
But months later, Mr Hawi told his wife the friendship was ‘over’ and that ‘he couldn’t handle his behaviour anymore’.
After allegedly fired the fatal shots through Mr Hawi’s driver-side window, Nazlioglu is accused of jumping into a silver Mercedes driven by Eljaidi.
Both men are accused of torching that car minutes later and escaping in a second getaway vehicle.
The former Comanchero bikie boss arrives at the NSW Supreme Court in 2014
The second getaway car – stored in the garage of a Bexley safe house in the days after the murder – was found a month later in Rosebery with a balaclava inside splattered with gunshot residue, the Crown alleges.
Both accused men’s genetic profile has been linked to DNA evidence found inside the car.
The crown case is circumstantial with no direct evidence showing either man was responsible for the murder.
‘There are eyewitnesses … but no witness will say they saw the accused Mr Nazlioglu shoot the deceased,’ crown prosecutor Lou Longo said in his opening address.
Mr Eljaidi’s barrister said he’d barely be involved in the trial given the ‘paucity of the evidence’ the crown case has against his client.
‘There is no suggestion of any evidence of motive on his behalf,’ David Dalton SC said.
‘As far as identification is concerned … the evidence is, in fact, contrary to him being involved.’
The trial continues.