A prominent lawyer described as a good man by his friends was sitting at a table outside a cafe in Sydney's southwest when he was shot dead in broad daylight.
Ho Ledinh, believed to be in his 60s, was gunned down in a suspected targeted attack outside the Happy Cup cafe at Bankstown City Plaza on Tuesday afternoon.
His attacker remains on the run after fleeing from the area with police interviewing witnesses, and scouring through CCTV footage as they try and track them down, police say.
Early investigations suggest it was a targeted attack, Acting Superintendent Brad Thorne said.
Mr Ledinh was one of the solicitors who represented Philip Nguyen, the man jailed over the killing of Sydney police officer Constable Bill Crews in 2010.
He was present when the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal increased Nguyen's minimum jail sentence by six years in August 2013.
Hours before the shooting, Mr Ledinh was reportedly having coffee with a friend of 20 years, Van Nguyen.
Mr Nguyen said he was shocked when he received a phone call later in the day telling him his friend had been shot dead.
"For me he was perfect, he was a very good man and helped people a lot with their families," he told NewsCorp Australia.
Mr Ledinh reportedly once owned the Happy Cup cafe and is also the author of an English-Vietnamese book "Dictionary of Law" and studied law and political sciences at the University of New South Wales.
On his Facebook profile, he is pictured with NSW Labor politician Shaoquett Moselmane among many happy family photos.
This is the latest of several attacks in the area, with a man stabbed in the chest in the same plaza in June 2017.
In April 2016, gangland kingpin Walid 'Wally' Ahmad' was killed in a spray of bullets outside a cafe on the rooftop of nearby Bankstown Central shopping centre.
