Tarek Zahed

Tarek Zahed (born 21 June 1980) is a Sydney-based Lebanese-Australian organised crime figure. He is an alleged member, and former sergeant-at-arms, of the Comanchero Motorcycle Club.

The Comanchero Zahed was born in Sydney to a Lebanese family. His parents were refugees from the Lebanese Civil War.

In 1995, he was convicted of assault and of resisting arrest, marking his first major convictions. In 2001, he was again convicted of assault after unleashing his dogs to maul a woman in a road rage incident. On 10 February 2021, Zahed made a plea bargain with the Crown where he pledged guilty to using violence to inspire fear in exchange for him paying a $1,000 Australian dollar fine and the charges of affray being dropped. Justice Graeme Hanson who accepted the plea bargain stated that Zahed was not a good citizen when sentencing him.

In July 2021, Zahed attempted to leave Australia for a trip to Turkey and Lebanon, which led to the Australian Federal Police issuing an Interpol green notice against him, which claimed he was a dangerous criminal. At the time Buddle lived in self-imposed exile in Dubai and it is believed that Zahed's Middle Eastern trip was in some way connected with Buddle.

Legal issues After the arrest of Mick Murray in April 2022, a leadership struggle began within the Comanchero with the new national president being Allan Meehan who beat out Zahed for the top post. On 10 May 2022, Zahed was shot and badly wounded during a murder attempt at the Bodyfit gym in Auburn which killed his younger brother Omar. Zahed's body was described as being "shredded" as he took 10 bullets to his face, head, arms, legs, stomach and pelvis. Assoum had been kidnapped and killed in his own car, which was found burned. Zahed's fingerprints were found inside the burned remains of Assoum's car. On 29 August 2022, Zahed while on a visit to New South Wales was arrested in Edgecliff in a dramatic downtake by the tactical police squad who shot out the windows of Zahed's car and dragged him out of his BMW after he refused to get out. Commander Danny Doherty of the New South Wales police told the media that Zahed "was non-compliant at the best of times, he was definitely non-compliant yesterday. Those beanbag rounds had to be used to get into the car to drag him out, handcuff him and put him on the footpath to have him safely arrested." Zahed was denied bail and ordered held at the Goulburn jail while awaiting his trial, which was scheduled to begin on 5 February 2024. In September 2023, his sister Asmahan Zahed was arrested and charged with the possession of stolen goods.

Just before their trial was due to begin on 5 February 2024, the Zahed brothers made plea bargains with the Crown. In exchange for the first degree murder charges being dropped by the Crown, Tarek Zahed pleaded guilty to hindering the discovery of evidence regarding a serious indictable offence while Abdul Kahir Zahed pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to murder. In a statement of fact submitted to the court as part of the plea bargains, Tarek admitted that he had burned Assoum's car after his murder as a part of an effort to hinder the police investigation of the murder. As part of the same statement of fact, Abdul Kahir admitted that he knew who had murdered Assoum, but would not name the killers because he wished to follow the outlaw biker code of never incriminating another outlaw biker in a crime. On 11 March 2024, Zahed was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. Justice Richard Button stated in sentencing Zahed: "It is impossible to say that, but for the actions undertaken and directed by the offender, that the killer, or killers, would have been detected, convicted and punished. Even so...the actions and orders of the offender surely played some role in making the police investigation more difficult." In March 2024, media reports claimed that Zahad was reportedly disenchanted with his lifestyle as it was stated he wanted "to turn away from life in the underworld". Zahad stated that in 2014 that he knew his younger brother Abdul Kahir "were up to something" and he only burned the Assoum's car to protect his brother. A report by a prison psychologist submitted to the court had Zahad saying he wanted out of the underworld "Because I’ve got responsibilities...my wife, children and my brother’s children...my mother." As Justice Button added in the time served in jail awaiting his trial to his prison sentence, Zahed is due to be released in December 2024.