Three men arrested as part of a police probe into the associates of slain gangland figure Carl Williams have been released, pending further inquiries.
This morning police investigating the bashing murder of Williams in jail last year raided the family home of his former prison mate Tommy Ivanovic.
Detectives swooped on the house in Cornwall Street in Brunswick West just after 7am, and a short time later arrested three men at a separate, unnamed location.
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The trio were known to be associates of Ivanovic.
The weatherboard home is owned by the family of Tommy Ivanovic, who shared a high-security unit at Barwon Prison with Williams and his alleged killer Matthew Charles Johnson.
Ivanovic, also known as "Little Tommy", was a some-time drug dealer and trusted member of the "Williams Crew" during the gangland wars.
He was jailed for 18 years in 2003 for the shooting murder of a motorcyclist.
Williams and Ivanovic were sufficiently close at one stage for Williams to ask him to be godfather to his daughter Dhakota. But Ivanovic was jailed before the christening.
Johnson is accused of bashing Williams to death with part of an exercise bike inside the Acacia unit in April last year.
Police established Taskforce Driver to investigate Williams’ death, and those detectives today arrested three men who are being questioned over a decade-old attempted murder in Westmeadows.
The intended murder target survived two separate attempts on his life at his home in Bent Street, Westmeadows in 1999 and 2001.
In the first attempt on November 22, 1999, the murder target was reversing out of his driveway when a gunman fired shots into his car, hitting him in the shoulder.
The then-32-year-old was taken to hospital and recovered from his injuries - only to be targeted a second time on May 15, 2001.
In that attack, police believe two men lay in wait in a neighbour’s yard before ambushing him and opening fire on his property while his family was inside.
He suffered minor injuries and did not require medical treatment.
Detectives said today that they had taken statements from two men who saw the gunmen fleeing the scene.
The three men arrested today - a 52-year-old Preston man and two Brunswick men, aged 37 and 40 - are being questioned over the second attempted murder.
The police taskforce investigating Williams' death seized documents from inside the weatherboard house in Cornwall Street, where neighbours said an elderly couple lived. It is the long-time home of Ivanovic's parents.
Detectives searched through a white Ford Falcon parked in the yard of the property.
Neighbours said the elderly couple kept to themselves, and could regularly be seen tending to fruit trees in their yard.
Neighbours were reluctant to comment any further.
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