A man has been charged with murder hours after his wife was found dead inside their home in what police allege were “very violent” circumstances.
Emergency services were rushed to a unit complex on Knox Street in Belmore, in Sydney’s southwest, at 7.50am on Wednesday after receiving reports of concern for the welfare of a “distressed woman”.
Khouloud Hawatt, 31, a mother of five, was found dead inside an apartment.
Homicide detectives established the crime scene and, following investigation, the woman’s husband, Talaat Hawatt, 35, was arrested 30 kilometers away, at a home in Denham Court, less than an hour later.
He was taken to Campbelltown Police Station where he has since been charged with Murder (Domestic Violence), Contravention of an Arrested Domestic Violence Order, Use of a Prohibited Weapon Contrary to Prohibition Order and Failure to Comply with Access to Evidence Order. digital.
Hawatt was refused bail to appear at Campbelltown Local Court on Thursday.
The charges come after new photos emerged of a couple’s seemingly happy marriage less than a decade ago.
The couple, who married in Lebanon in 2015, have five children ranging in age from six months to eight years.
Khouloud Hawatt, a mother of five, was found dead inside a unit in Belmore on Wednesday.
Her husband, Talaat Hawatt (pictured), was charged with murder on Wednesday night.
Photos from their wedding show them posing for the camera on the arm of Mrs Hawatt carrying a bouquet of white roses and her husband in a three-piece suit.
In another image, they gaze longingly into each other’s eyes, clueless to the horror that will supposedly unfold less than ten years later.
Earlier on Wednesday, Campsie Superintendent Sheridan Waldau said the woman died “sometime early this morning” and that officers allegedly stumbled upon “a very violent murder scene.”
She confirmed that Hawatt was known to a strike force targeting domestic violence offenders known as Operation Amarok and that his wife had an AVO (Arrested Violence Order) against him when she was allegedly murdered.
“I know Amarok had noticed it before and Campsie police checked on it in August,” Superintendent Waldau said.
It comes after a woman who knew Ms Hawatt told Daily Mail Australia she had spoken to a mother of five the day before her alleged death.
He said there was no indication anything was wrong.
Standing arm in arm and with Mrs Hawatt carrying a bouquet of white roses, the couple poses for the camera in their wedding finery (pictured)
In another image, they gaze longingly into each other’s eyes, clueless to the horror that will supposedly unfold less than ten years later.
Police are seen outside a house in Sydney’s southwest on Wednesday.
The woman claimed that the family was going to be kicked out of their unit in a few weeks and that neighbors had complained about them yelling and slamming doors.
Another neighbor said he heard the sound of people hitting walls and chasing each other Tuesday night.
It is understood Mrs Hawatt has no family in Australia, but her husband’s father lived in Condell Park, in Sydney’s southwest.
‘The mother used to come to our shop. She was very calm. It’s very sad because they have five children,” a local worker told Daily Mail Australia.
A crime scene has been established in the couple’s unit block in Belmore (pictured)