IT is about 9.30am when closed circuit television footage shows notorious double killer Adnan “Eddie’’ Darwiche and another man walk briskly towards the maximum security cell inside Cessnock jail.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Inside is Fadi “Ricky” Shamoun, a 33-year-old Iraqi refugee with close ties to the Assyrian Kings gang in western Sydney who is seven years through a maximum 27-year stretch for murdering a man in front of his wife in their bedroom over a business dispute.
Shamoun had only been moved to the same cell wing as Darwiche and the second man, who can not be named for legal reasons but is currently facing a murder charge, the previous afternoon after a punch-up with a no-name prisoner in another part of the 800-inmate strong prison.
It had played into the hands of Darwiche, a notorious member of the Lebanese crime family serving two life terms for two murders.
Darwiche had himself been the victim of a vicious stabbing last year at the hands of several rivals with links to the Assyrian Kings inside Goulburn’s maximum security jail - separate to the notorious Supermax wing - during simmering religious tensions.
The attack prompted prison officials to move Darwiche to Cessnock, where he had continued his cantankerous and belligerent way with aggressive behaviour towards guards and other prisoners.
So last Friday morning, Darwiche and his accomplice make a beeline for Shamoun’s cell.
Armed with a piece of an aluminium window frame which had been sharpened into a knife-like weapon, commonly referred to as a “shiv” inside prison, the pair are seen to flail about before a third prisoner walks up, closes the cell door and stands sentinel.
Within moments, prison guards realise something is badly amiss and storm the cell to find Shamoun with multiple wounds to his forearms, body and back of the head.
But they are all superficial, with sources telling Fairfax Media the aluminium shiv may not have been sharp and sturdy enough to pierce deep into flesh.
He is back in jail that afternoon after being taken to hospital to have the wounds - more than a dozen - cleaned and stitched.
“And if [Shamoun] couldn’t fight as good as he can then he may well be not with is right now,’’ a source said.
“He is a thrashing machine.’’
In fact, much like Darwiche, Shamoun’s toughness got him through an attempt on his life at Lithgow earlier this year, which prompted his move to Cessnock.
During his sentencing in 2012, the court heard he was Iraqi-born before his family fled to Jordan and Syria then onto Australia when he was 21.
His defence tendered a reference from a “Reverend Narsai Youkhanis from the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East”.
“Reverend Youkhanis described the offender as being a helpful and faithful member of the church community,’’ NSW Supreme Court Justice Geoff Bellew said.
“He also described the offender's family as a well respected family in the Assyrian community, who played a substantial and positive role in the community's general affairs.’’
Darwiche is part of the notorious Lebanese Muslim family which had had an ongoing feud with another crime family, the Razzaqs, that resulted in multiple murders and shootings.
When Darwiche was stabbed eight times by a group linked to the Assyrian Kings armed with shivs made from a toilet brush and a sandwich toaster handle last September, it was reported that it was a pre-emptive strike after rumours had circulated that Muslim inmates were preparing to kill a Christian.
News Corp reported that at least 30 gang members had been planning to take extremist action against those who opposed Islam inside the maximum security section of Goulburn jail.
Corrective Services later refuted any claims that there had been a threat to “behead staff or inmates” or that authorities foil a plot to kidnap and behead a prison officer.
“Criminal gangs are sometimes formed based on religious background, but there has been no "religiously motivated" gang war at Goulburn Correctional Centre,’’ the department said in a statement rebutting the article.
And the attack on Darwiche was “not related to terror, it was motivated by criminal activity’’.
The exact motive for last Friday’s attack remains an assumption, with all parties refusing to cooperate with authorities.
It is understood Shamoun has told authorities that he slipped over the shower - obviously more than a dozen times.
But the suggestion that it was religion-based has not been lost, although simmering religious feuds and concerns about radicalisation in other prisons had not been a major problem at Cessnock in the past.
“It has been an issue in other places, but not really in Cessnock,’’ a source said.
“But I think it would be a fair assumption to think the motive may have been a form of payback to what happened to him.
“You can call it on religious grounds, or just that they simply don’t like each other.
“People take sides, they align themselves, the reasons for that don’t really matter too much inside.’’
