As mourners gathered to remember an underworld kingpin, the coffin stood empty
After he was gunned down in a parking garage, it was Sam “The Punisher” Abdulrahim’s funeral – not his death – that became underworld lore in 2025.
The burial of underworld figure Sam “The Punisher” Abdulrahim was always going to be a circus, but nobody – not even those involved – could have foreseen just how bizarre things would end up going that day in late January 2025.
The former bikie had long cut a huge figure on Melbourne’s gangland scene. But in the last two years of his life, he was relentlessly hunted by a coterie of some of the most powerful players in the underworld.
A gold coffin for slain underworld strongman Sam Abdulrahim at Fawkner Cemetery.Credit: Jason South
On January 28, they caught up with him, gunning down the 32-year-old in a car parking garage just days before he was about to slip out of the country.
The photograph, taken by Jason South and chosen by The Age as one of the defining images of the year, was taken days later, at Abdulrahim’s funeral.
Seemingly innocuous at first, the longer you look at the image, the stranger it becomes. Mourners are facing away from the ostentatious gold coffin, not looking on, as you might expect.
Despite seemingly holding a boxing champion, the coffin is being carried with ease by just three people. Look closer again, and you can see that the cap is slightly ajar.
Such a flash send-off for The Punisher almost didn’t happen, though.
Sam Abdulrahim was gunned down by a hit team.Credit: Jason South
Just hours before this photo was taken, Abdulrahim’s body had arrived at the Alawi Islamic Association Centre in Epping in a plain wooden coffin.
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His family had not expected the press pack to gather so early, and a frantic discussion ensued about how it didn’t look right to bury the flamboyant Middle Eastern organised crime figure in something so basic.
