Lawyers for Mr Aziz have been in court this week attempting to get back hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets seized by the state last year, before he left for Egypt, from the sale of his Berwick home for $755,000. But the Director of Public Prosecutions is defending its seizure of his assets, and wants the court to dismiss Mr Aziz's bid. An IBAC surveillance photo of Casey councillor Sam Aziz (left) and developer John Woodman (right) at a Subway restaurant in April 2018. Credit:IBAC Lawyers for the DPP argue that Mr Aziz's taking out the money and flight to Egypt show he had been capable of prosecuting his case immediately after his assets were frozen. “I’m not suggesting criminality but [the cash withdrawals] show there was a process of self-protection taking place,” Rena Burton, the barrister for the DPP, told the County Court this week. "He wants to get out and stay out of the jurisdiction."

Mr Aziz’s barrister, Simon Rubinstein, told the court his client was too sick to return from Egypt. And he argued that Mr Aziz risked being denied a fair chance to argue for his assets to be returned. "It is important that [Mr Aziz] is provided with natural justice to present [his] case to the court as to ... whether or not it is tainted property," Mr Rubinstein said. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video Mr Rubinstein did not say when Mr Aziz would return from Egypt. "It ought not be presented that he has fled from jurisdiction," he said. Mr Aziz was teaching at the Bloom Business School in Cairo until at least July 2020, he said.

Loading Mr Rubinstein said Mr Aziz could not return to Australia because of a heart condition, diabetes and poor mental health. "The difficulties the applicant has with his health [have meant] he has found it difficult to return." At one point, Mr Rubinstein said there had been difficulty in taking instruction from Mr Aziz in the case because he was overseas, but Judge Philip Misso questioned whether this was a legitimate issue. “In a modern era of Skype and other things that I use socially when I speak to one of my children who lives overseas, if you want to speak to someone with a time difference, you just make an arrangement, don’t you?” Judge Misso said. On Thursday, Mr Rubinstein agreed that as a Casey councillor, Mr Aziz had been working for Mr Woodman, who had various planning decisions before the council.

Mr Woodman paid Mr Aziz $115,000 to work on a project at Little River near Geelong. Mr Rubinstein said the payments were not directly for work relating to Casey Council and should therefore be not considered "tainted". But IBAC has heard that Mr Woodman made a range of payments to Mr Aziz, including for consulting work on the Little River project, and none of them were ever disclosed. Mr Aziz voted "time and time again in a manner which favoured the developers without ever indicating he had what we would say was an obvious financial relationship with Mr Woodman", counsel assisting IBAC, Michael Tovey, QC, said at last year's hearings. IBAC's hearings begin again on Monday. The judge is yet to make a decision in the case.