NSW Police have been ordered to pay more than $60,000 in legal costs after a group of men were wrongfully arrested for assaulting officers and a court was played video of a “very serious physical altercation”.
The video, played in Parramatta Local Court on Thursday, showed two police officers confronting Khaled Zreika, 21, and Hussein Zraika, 22, as they purchased masks from the Westside Petroleum service station at Guildford on September 24 last year.
The officers, who were from a Strike Force Raptor squad set up to investigate alleged bikie gangs and criminal associates, immediately told the men to go outside because they were being arrested for not wearing masks as required under Covid public health orders.
Outside the service station, Noah Obeid, 19, Fadi Zraika, 20 and Zachariya al-Ahmad, 20, approached police to criticise them for the arrest.
The court was told that a police version of events that took place outside the service station falsely accused the group of men of a string of offences and they were charged with assaulting police, harassing police, hindering police and resisting arrest.
The charges were later withdrawn by police as the men’s lawyer Abdul Saddick started his own investigation and sourced CCTV footage from the service station after he feared police would not obtain or disclose that footage.
In court, unedited footage of the arrest shows one of the men calling a police officer a “dumb dog” after he was told he would arrested.
As police were questioned about why they were arresting the men and told that they were purchasing masks from inside the service station, the footage shows officers putting the men on the ground.
In the footage one of the men is kneed multiple times while on the ground.
A police officer is also overhead saying “I’ll knock you out”.
At one point, another officer says “the guys have pumped him, it’s gonna look bad on CCTV”.
Parramatta Local Court magistrate Greg Grogin said it was clear there was a “major” discrepancy between the police version of events and the vision of the incident.
He found proceedings against the men were initiated without reasonable cause and ordered police to pay $61,755 in legal costs.
“To say that the video showed nothing but a very serious physical altercation between police and the defendants would be an understatement,” Mr Grogin said.
Police previously argued the amount sought by the men was excessive; however, thxjmtzywe force conceded there was no reasonable cause to bring the charges.
A complaint about the conduct of the arresting officers has been made to NSW Police who are understood to be investigating.
