‘Gun to a fist fight’: man killed in duel over woman
Mohammad Chami staged a street fisticuffs with a man he thought was sleeping with his ex-wife, but was allegedly shot five times when his rival arrived with a gun.
The 40-year-old man was shot dead by two men in a semi-industrial cul-de-sac in Sydney’s western suburbs late one night in March 2022.
He was allegedly fired six times by Ayman Manly, 42, who is on trial in the NSW Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to murder.
“This defendant brought a gun to a fistfight and used it,” Attorney General Eric Balodis SC told the jury on Monday. he said.
Manly also denied shooting at another man, known as Witness 1, on lawful grounds with intent to murder or cause grievous bodily harm.
Mr Balodis said Mr Chami’s relationship with his wife was unhappy because he used drugs, was unfaithful and jealous.
The jury heard the man separated from his wife after an incident in April 2021 in which he attacked her and she stabbed him.
Mr Balodis said Mr Chami, who was jailed days later for an unrelated reason, suspected his wife had returned to work at a brothel run by Manly in Sydney’s inner west.
The 14 jurors were told Mr Chami also thought his ex-wife had slept with the other man, but he denied this.
On February 23, 2022, the court was told he texted Manly about the duel.
“Now we need to fight directly one on one and then I will leave,” he wrote.
After leaving his opponent hanging in a park in Yagoona, in the west of the city, the jury heard Mr Chami eventually agreed to hold the fight in the Merrylands cul-de-sac where the shooting took place.
In the recorded phone call played on the field, Manly was heard telling his wife: “There’s a f***ing bastard calling me, he wants to fight me.”
On 3 March Mr Chami went with Witness 1 to the Merrylands address.
While they were waiting, two men came out of the tunnel at the end of the street.
The jury heard Mr Chami raised his fists to strike the shorter of the two men before he was shot multiple times.
Witness 1 turned to flee and was shot once in the hip before getting into his car and driving off to notify police and paramedics.
The prosecutor claimed that one of the attackers was Manly, while the identity of the other is unknown.
The defense lawyer of the 42-year-old player denied the allegations.
“He wasn’t there. He didn’t shoot anyone,” David Dalton SC told the jury.
There were no working CCTV cameras at the scene of the shooting and prosecutors will rely on cell towers connected to three phones allegedly belonging to Manly to prove his whereabouts at the time.
The five-week trial before Judge Sarah McNaughton continues Tuesday.
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