Jail for deplorable, deadly NSW gunfight

Mahmoud Ahmad, 37, was on Thursday jailed for seven years for the manslaughter of underworld figure Safwan Charbaji, who was killed in a daylight gunfight in April 2016.

Before setting a minimum term that could see Ahmad paroled in June 2022, NSW Supreme Court Justice Richard Button acknowledged the case's "sharp, countervailing features".

Summarising agreed facts, he said the Ahmads and associates met Mr Charbaji and others outside Walid Ahmad's business before a dispute developed into jostling and then a gunfight.

When an associate of Mahmoud Ahmad was shot and fell to the ground, the offender grabbed the injured man's revolver and moved towards his car with an eye to escape the scene.

But he was soon faced with a gun pointed in his direction from a car containing Mr Charbaji.

Ahmad fired warning shots over the car but his brother Walid shot through the windshield, fatally wounding Mr Charbaji.

Justice Button said he was asked to sentence Ahmad on the basis he'd been in a joint criminal enterprise with the shooter Walid who had unlawfully killed through excessive self-defence.

"The deplorable fact is that a gunfight broke out in broad daylight in a Sydney suburb, with the result that the life of a fellow human being was snuffed out," the judge said,

"No doubt, events such as that cause all members of the community to feel unsettled, anxious, afraid."

Walid Ahmad himself died in a brazen shooting three weeks later, while Ahmad fled overseas, leaving his wife and family behind.

He returned a year later, in March 2017, knowing he would be arrested on arrival and charged with Mr Charbaji's murder.

That charge was only dropped this year when he offered to plead guilty to the lesser charge.

Justice Button said Ahmad, on one hand, had already served time for gun violence and been involved in a sudden death that had "devastating consequences".

But Ahmad had also accepted his responsibility when able and there was evidence he was a "loving husband ... a dutiful son (and) a person of charity, commitment to community, faith, courtesy and diligence".

"I agree with the submission of the crown prosecutor that human beings are complex," Justice Button said.

"They are to be thought of in shades of grey, not in extremes of black-and-white, and even a person who has intersected more than once with the criminal justice system in serious ways can nevertheless have his or her very positive attributes."

Australian Associated Press