No-one believed Sam Abdulrahim wasn’t involved in George Marrogi’s daylight murder of Kadir Ors. Not the cops, judge, lawyers or the jury.
More importantly, Ors’ very dangerous mates didn’t buy a word of it.
On Tuesday the man who dubbed himself ‘The Punisher’ was shot dead in a hail of bullets by men suspected to be linked to friends of Ors, known to his mates as ‘KD’.
Ors hugged Abdulrahim when the pair had a ‘chance meeting’ in a Melbourne street. Moments later feared crime boss Marrogi suddenly showed up and shot Ors dead.
Abdulrahim was hauled before the Supreme Court of Victoria in 2020 to explain that apparently spontaneous 2016 encounter with Ors.
The Punisher had already frustrated the judge when he appeared in Marrogi’s murder charge pre-trial hearing in 2018 – and the judge hadn’t forgotten when Abdulrahim re-appeared.
‘He managed to stick his head up my nose [then],’ Justice Paul Coghlan said.’That’s not going to occur this time? I’m going to try to be very patient about it.’
The judge’s hopes were soon to be dashed as Abdulrahim squirmed, twisted and flat out lied in court when he was grilled over his role in the murder plot.
Detectives had wanted to charge Abdulrahim for working with Marrogi to murder Ors, who had been running a dangerous crew of crooks in competition to the crime boss, but simply could not gather enough evidence.
Abdulrahim claimed he had just met a mate for lunch when he chanced upon Ors outside the Campbellfield Plaza, in Melbourne’s north.
CCTV showed Abdulrahim arrive in a white Land Rover with his then-girlfriend where they waited for seven minutes until Ors arrived.
Aged 27, Abdulrahim had just five years left to live when he entered the witness box to once again spin his version of events.
It started with a lie and went downhill from there on in.
‘Back in September 2016, did you know George Marrogi?’ Crown prosecutor Mark Gibson QC asked him.
‘Can’t recall, to be honest,’ Abdulrahim responded.
‘Mr Abdulrahim, you’ve just taken an oath on the Qur’an. You appreciate that?’ Mr Gibson reminded him.
‘Yep. Yep. I’m pretty sure I would’ve been on – like, I would’ve met him once maybe,’ The Punisher continued.
‘You understand you’ve just taken an oath on the Qur’an?,’ he was reminded yet again. ‘And you understand that there are consequences of not telling the truth?’
Abdulrahim was of course all too familiar with the consequences of committing perjury.
But he feared more what would come should Ors’ allies get confirmation he was a dirty rat.
After Ors was gunned down, Abdulrahim called his lawyer rather than the police. Justice Coghlan himself interjected to ask Abdulrahim why he did that.
‘Cause my lawyer will handle everything. I don’t like to just call the police direct, and people don’t take that lightly if you call the police direct,’ Abdulrahim told him.
‘This was a job for the police, wasn’t it?’ the judge asked.
‘Hundred per cent. But like I said, the people that my sister was unfortunately married into, you don’t call the police direct, or else it could land you into trouble,’ The Punisher replied.
By the time Abdulrahim had finished in the witness box, he had uttered the statements ‘I don’t know’, ‘I can’t recall’ and ‘I can’t remember’ more than 100 times.
Police knew he had been talking to Marrogi leading up to Ors’ murder. Phone records caught him doing so just four days before Ors was shot dead.
They suspected he had also been using Snapchat to message the feared crime boss, alerting him that Ors was in position for the kill on the day he died.
CCTV captured Abdulrahim’s then fiancée drive into the carpark of Campbellfield Plaza, in Melbourne’s north, and drive headfirst into a spot before reversing into another.
Abdularahim had lost his licence at the time for shoddy driving and needed to be ferried about by his partner.
The Punisher claimed his partner was a ‘terrible driver’ – a claim he made repeatedly while in the witness box.
The rolling of eyes within the courtroom must have been obvious to Abdulrahim, who had in 2015 crashed his Ferrari into four other cars, killing 88-year-old Muriel Hulett.
‘She was a bad driver,’ he persisted. ‘She could never park properly. So she ended up reverse parking.’
When the shooting broke out, that convenient parking decision allowed his partner to race out and collect him within seconds.
‘Yep, I didn’t ask her (to park that way). She chose to do it herself,’ he insisted. ‘I don’t, I don’t tell her how to park or how to drive.’
Abdulrahim attempted to have people believe he was mates with Ors. CCTV captured him giving him a hug in the moments before Marrogi arrived to kill him.
‘I shook his hand. I hugged him. Right? Just like a friendly boy shake, you know,’ Abdulrahim claimed.
It was a coincidence he had bumped into Ors that day – nothing to do with marking him for death.
‘I wasn’t expecting to see him at all,’ he told the court. ‘It was a coincidence, yeah.’
Ors had been worried about the recent shooting of another feared criminal in Nabil Maghnie.
Known as ‘The Mad Leb’, Maghnie had a week earlier been shot in the head through his front windscreen before driving himself to hospital.
He survived that attack only to be shot dead in January 2020.
‘Cause like he was paranoid or something. I remember our mate had been shot a week beforehand,’ Abdulrahim said.
‘Everyone was talking about it. It was all over media. Anyone that we bumped into and we seen, we’ll talk about it.’
Pressed on the meeting, Abdulrahim claimed to be emotional about the day Ors died.
‘F***! he said in frustration. ‘I don’t like to remember that day.’
In a slap in the face to Ors’ friends and family, Abdulrahim attempted to paint his ‘mate’ as a hero.
‘We just talked and then, that’s when they seen a red car pull up, and they’re like, “Who’s that?” Then we looked, and then that’s when KD goes, “Let’s walk.” Kadir.
‘So as we walked, like, literally a split second, he goes, “Run.” He pretty much saved my life,’ Abdulrahim told the court.
Run they did, in all directions, leaving Marrogi with a clear shot at Ors as he drilled him with bullets.
Not content, the murderous crime boss returned to his car before driving up to the mortally injured Ors and finishing the job.
‘I was running for my life,’ Abdulrahim said.
‘What about Kadir Ors?’ he was asked.
‘I can’t remember. I wasn’t looking back … I was worried about my fiancée,’ he claimed.
Fed up with the story, Mr Gibson bluntly told Abdulrahim what everyone else was no doubt thinking.
‘Mr Abdulrahim, I suggest to you that you were expecting Mr Ors to be at the Campbellfield Plaza that afternoon, Monday 26 September 2016?,’ he said.
‘You intended for him to be there? And that was a meeting that had been arranged.’
Abdulrahim was indignant.
‘No You’re just throwing accusations now. I don’t appreciate you to be saying that at all, to be honest,’ he moaned.
By this point the jury was showing signs of frustration with Abdulrahim, pushing one juror to call for an unexpected break.
‘Sure you’re all right to go on because … this isn’t meant to be a torture chamber,’ Justice Coghlan told the jury.
After a short break the circus continued, with Abdulrahim repeating his story to Marrogi’s barrister under cross examination.
When it was finally over, Justice Coghlan went out of his way to try and explain the nonsense they had just observed and how they needed to apply it when coming up with a verdict.
‘It’s not suggested then there is no evidence from which you could draw the conclusion that (Abdulrahim) was party to a plot to lure Mr Ors to the shopping centre for the purpose of him – of them being shot,’ he told them.
‘You know that the witness knows the accused. It’s just a fact. And it’s one of the facts in the circumstantial case. Just that.
‘They know one another. It’s a connection but it goes no further than that. You can’t, because of the behaviour of this witness, draw any adverse conclusions to the position of the accused.’
Marrogi would go on to be convicted and was sentenced to 32 years in jail.
While he enjoyed a period behind bars running his criminal empire, it would collapse he would cop another or 22 years in jail in 2023 on the drug charges – increasing his overall non-parole period to 32 years.
With Marrogi behind bars, it became clear Abdulrahim had chosen the wrong side.
In the years that followed Ors’ murder, Abdulrahim would jump from bikie gang to bikie gang and become embroiled in Melbourne’s deadly tobacco wars.
The former bikie-turned-boxer had been the target of three murder contracts, a prison bashing, three assaults, a dozen fire bombings and seven shootings before his luck ran out.
In one attempted hit he was shot eight times and survived, and in another he escaped a barrage of bullets.
The 32-year-old former Mongol bikie had been living in hiding since two shootings at his former family home in Thomastown last year.
Police have good reason to believe Middle-Eastern organised crime bosses Kazem Hamad and Ahmed Al Hamza had something to do with Abdulrahim’s execution.
Ors was a respected member of the Hamad crew, as well as Hamad’s best friend.
Hamad was deported from in 2023 after serving a long heroin trafficking sentence, but is believed to be the main player in Melbourne’s bloody tobacco wars, which Abdulrahim also had stakes in.
A relationship The Punisher began with Ors’ widow after his murder only rubbed salt in the wounds.
Standing in the witness box, Abdulrahim said the day of Ors’ execution is one he would never forget.
Underworld players believe it is one his enemies never forgave.