Shooter may have murdered ‘wrong bloke’ outside gym, jury told

Taha Sabbagh was shot four times through the windshield and six times through the driver-side door by a masked man at 6.30am on March 2, 2023, outside the Elite Fight Force Gym in Sefton in Sydney’s west.

The 11-year-old was unharmed but was heard screaming for help, prompting a nearby business owner to call triple zero.

“The boy cried out for his dad but Taha Sabbagh was motionless and silent. He’d been shot dead,” Taylor said.

The shooter and another man fled in a stolen Mazda CX-3, which was later found burnt out near Birrong train station.

Le Nghia Andy Pham, 27, pleaded not guilty to Sabbagh’s murder as his trial commenced on Thursday.

He sat silent in the dock wearing a black suit, white shirt and dark blue tie, a fleur-de-lis neck tattoo sticking out from his collar.

Sabbagh drove a black Mercedes-Benz that was the same colour and model, and had a similar licence plate to the gym’s owner, he said.

“It’s possible that the shooter got the wrong bloke,” he told the jury.

Prosecutors do not allege that Pham pulled the trigger but instead have charged him with murder under a joint criminal enterprise.

The 27-year-old allegedly drove his co-offenders to where they picked up the Mazda before the shooting.

He is also alleged to have parked their getaway car, a Volkswagen Golf, in Birrong.

The shooter and second man swapped from the Mazda to the VW Golf and drove to an underground car park in Bankstown where Pham was waiting to pick them up in his sister’s silver BMW, the jury heard.

The VW was discovered by police also set alight.

After the murder, Pham allegedly smashed his phone, threw it into a lake and made an urgent application for a passport, Taylor said.

Taylor told the jury of a secretly recorded conversation in which the 27-year-old said he knew who murdered Sabbagh and that “his boys got him good”.

Defence barrister Madeleine Avenell SC said her client had driven the shooter and the other individual before and after Sabbagh was shot.

However, she rejected claims he knew about a plot to murder anyone.

She asked the jury not to be overwhelmed by the evidence but to try work out what was in her client’s mind and what he knew.