A former gang member who has been pursued by police for more than a decade has been found guilty of a vicious shooting, in a trial which has unravelled the inner workings of the brutal Sydney gang, the Brothers 4 Life.

Michael Odisho was convicted over a vicious retribution shooting.

Michael Odisho, 29, gave 7.30 intimate access to his life over the past two years as he awaited trial for the 2013 kneecapping of a fellow gang member, and recovered from an attempt on his own life.

Odisho maintained his innocence and denied police allegations of links to two of Sydney's most violent gangs.

"I'm a very nice bloke," he told 7.30.

"Every single girl in Australia loves me, the whole community loves me, but then again, if you go Google me and check me out, you'll think, 'far out, this guy's a monster'."

Odisho was named as one of five persons of interest in the 2005 murder of an innocent bystander, Ramon Khananyah, who was shot in the head when a crowded coffee house was sprayed with bullets in Fairfield in Sydney's south-west.

He has always denied involvement and has never been charged.

At the time of the murder, Odisho was 18 years old and a member of Fairfield gang DLASTHR ('The Last Hour'), which he said he had become involved in while still at school.

"It wasn't a gang scene," he told 7.30.

"We were school kids; we grew up together; later it developed into a gang sort of thing.

"I know what it looks in the public's eyes and I don't disagree with that, but when you're actually in it and you've grown up from school, it doesn't seem like a gang.

"Then again, if someone comes and hits my mum, of course I'm going to go shoot the bloke but that doesn't mean I'm in a gang, it just means I'm going to do what I've got to do.

"We don't go to the police, we're not like that. We do our own stuff."

Odisho's body is covered in tattoos, which taunt his police adversaries, the Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad (MEOCS).

One of Michael Odisho's tattoos, taunting the police's Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad (MEOC) who had been targeting him.

The acronyms MEOC and POI (person of interest) are inked on his knuckles, while his neck bears the slogan, "We trust in God but just in case, keep one loaded".

A tattoo of a submachine gun on his back sits under the words, "Retaliation is a must".

Six months before 7.30 met Odisho, he narrowly survived an attempt on his life when he was shot six times in the legs and arms.

Until his guilty verdict this month, he had beaten every serious charge police had thrown at him — including attempted murder, serious shooting offences and extortion — and had won a payout from the state for malicious prosecution.

The victim

After a trial mired in complications, a NSW District Court jury found Odisho guilty of a joint criminal enterprise to shoot a man in retribution for snorting cocaine he had promised to sell on behalf of the Brothers For Life.

The victim was shot twice in the knee, thigh and buttock while trapped in the backseat of a car at Bass Hill in the early hours of February 9, 2013.

The jury accepted the Crown case that Odisho had loaded the pistol and handed it to another man, a career criminal with a history of gun violence, who fired the bullets.

The court heard they had decided to "get" the victim hours earlier in a late-night meeting with fellow Brothers 4 Life members at the home of a convicted Skaf gang rapist.

The victim, a violent criminal on parole, was filmed on CCTV which was later played to the court, driving himself to Bankstown Hospital and hobbling inside.

A bullet shell police found in a bin at the hospital ( Supplied )

He initially told police he had been shot while jogging but when they discovered two spent bullet shells he had thrown in the hospital garbage bin, he turned informant in a major breakthrough for police and wore a listening device to snare his attackers.

Despite fears for the safety of him and his family, and still smarting from a bullet which would be lodged in his thigh for four months, the victim made a sworn statement to police that was tendered in court, fingering his attackers.

"I felt the worst pain in my life," he said in the statement of the shooting.

"I knew I was going to be popped [shot] ... because this is how the Brothers For Life take care of business. I've seen [it] first-hand.

"The Brothers For Life will cause me or my family harm once they hear I have made this statement."

It was the first chink in the wall of silence that had been frustrating the Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad.

The shooter

The man who fired the gunshots had earned a reputation for shooting people and had done time for shooting offences.

The court heard the shooter had incriminated himself in a conversation with the victim at Bankstown McDonalds six days after the attack, unaware the man he called his "closest friend" was wearing a listening device.

"I love you with all my heart," he said in audio played to the District Court.

"When you done that to me, you broke my heart like this and I reacted like that.

"I'm the type of person that ... when I'm fighting every day, I get into the fighting and them someone that does the smallest thing wrong, I'm just like — and they're in front of me — I just go boom."

"That's why I was like that in jail. It was crazy in jail and I wanted to bash every c**t because I was on a roll."

His arrest days later was yet another breakthrough for police, but how the authorities dealt with him next would cause division in the upper echelons of the NSW Police Force.

In April 2014, the shooter was granted indemnity from prosecution by then NSW attorney-general Greg Smith, in return for evidence against Odisho and in other major trials.

The immunity was opposed in a memo by senior MEOCS team leader Detective Superintendent Steve Patton, who cited the star witness' "extensive criminal history" and "propensity to shoot people".

Det. Supt. Patton wrote the move would send an "unacceptable message to the general public in particular in South Western Sydney" and said future victims of crime would be reluctant to assist police.

The trial

The indemnity agreement, subject to a suppression order that was lifted this week, would prove a hurdle for prosecutors in the Odisho case.

By the time of the District Court trial, the victim was on remand for serious drugs charges and furious about the indemnity granted to the man who shot him.

"I want my justice. He shot me," the victim told the court.

"Now I know for next time when I get shot, I will deal with it myself. I don't have to go tell the police."

In court, the victim recanted his earlier police statement, testifying that the shooter acted alone and Odisho had not been involved in the shooting, but the jury believed the victim's earlier version of events.

The court had heard Odisho had told police, upon being charged, he "had the flu" and "didn't go anywhere" on the night of the shooting.

A bullet presented as evidence by the police against Michael Odisho. ( Supplied )

But there was other incriminating evidence: his fingerprints and DNA were found on the car, phone records pinned him to the area and a text message he had sent to the shooter undermined his alibi.

"I souljered [sic] on while I was dieing [sic]. Till 5am Lol f***ken love ya."

"Lol yes you did bro," the shooter wrote back.

"Love you heaps bro."

Odisho will be sentenced in the District Court in early June. He faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in jail.