A criminal lawyer with a string of high-profile clients has denied illegally sharing details of a sexual assault complainant.
Abdulrahim Saddik, 31, has represented members of some of Sydney’s most notorious crime figures, including alleged gang leader Rafat Alameddine and bikie Tarek Zahed.
Saddik’s lawyer entered a not guilty plea on his behalf in Parramatta Local Court today to one charge of publishing details of a complainant in a prescribed sexual offence.
Saddik is accused of sharing sensitive case information to an unrelated third party while representing a 24-year-old man charged with sexual assault.
Those details allegedly included the name of the complainant in the case.
Under NSW law, it is illegal to publish any information that identifies complainants for prescribed sexual offences except with permission from a court or the alleged victim.
Police described Saddik as an alleged “close associate” of a high-profile organised crime family from Sydney’s southwest.
His past clients have included the alleged leader of the Alameddine crime gang, Rafat Alameddine, and former high-ranking bikie Tarek Zahed.
In May, police issued a public appeal for information about Alameddine’s whereabouts by virtue of an outstanding warrant for two counts of murder.
He is believed to be overseas, but investigators urged him to return to Australia to face the charges.
The warrant relates to the daylight shooting of father and son Toufik and Salim Hamze who were gunned at Guildford, in Sydney’s west, in 2021, amid a spate of public gangland murders.
Police have called it one of the worst organised crime-related assassinations ever seen in Australia.
Zahed is serving a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to one charge of hindering a police investigation having avoided facing trial on murder and aggravated kidnapping charges.
He was dramatically arrested in Sydney’s eastern suburbs in August 2022, with police using beanbag rounds to shoot out the windows of the BMW he was travelling in.
Saddik’s matter will return to court in July.
