The manager of a function centre leased from the family of corrupt former politician Eddie Obeid, has been charged with further offences in relation to two fires inside the premises in Sydney's south-west.

Elie Fares, 28, was arrested late last year and charged with orchestrating the attempted arson of The Bellevue function centre in Restwell Street, Bankstown.

Strike Force Babel was established to investigate two fires alleged to have been deliberately lit at the function centre.

Emergency services were called to the first blaze at 4.45am on Boxing Day 2016.

Police allege that Mr Fares had been urging the building’s owners Wally Wehbe, a long-term business partner of the now jailed Obeid, along with Obeid’s son Paul, to carry out renovations, which they declined to do.

When the Boxing Day fire caused smoke damage but not much else, it is alleged that Mr Fares organised a second fire eight days later.

Mr Fares was arrested on December 22 and charged with two counts of being an accessory before the fact to dishonesty for gain, damage or destroy property by fire.

He was refused bail and, on Wednesday, Mr Fares was charged at Burwood Local Court with two counts of perverting the course of justice.

Police are alleging that Mr Fares influenced two witnesses to provide false statements to police investigating the alleged arson.

Two other people have been charged over the fires.

Lina Kurdi, 26, was charged last year with concealing a serious indictable offence and being an accessory after the fact.

Police alleged she knew Omar Jamel Eddine, 33, who was arrested and charged over the alleged arson.

Mr Eddine’s arrest followed the release by police of CCTV footage, which revealed a man in a hoodie pouring petrol over the tables at the function centre.

It is understood that the building’s insurers QBE are planning to commence civil action against Mr Fares over the damage to the building.

The Obeids and their associates have had a great deal of bad luck with fires in the past.

Last year, three men were jailed for their role in setting fire to a boat owned by a close associate of the Obeid family, Justin Kennedy Lewis.

In 2017, the NSW District Court was told that, in October 2009, Gary Sullivan was at the pub with his mates Mike “Chop” Bennetto and Adam “Sauce” Cassell when Chop said he had a mate who was willing to pay for an “insurance job”.

A few days later, the jury heard, Cassell drove Sullivan to the Rozelle Marina where he set fire to Mr Lewis’s boat “Porn”, a Formula Fastech powerboat.

Sullivan received a suspended sentence in return for giving evidence for the Crown. Cassell was sentenced to a non-parole period of two years and three months and Bennetto to a non-parole period of two years and eight months.

Mr Lewis, who has not been charged over the incident, received a $360,000 insurance payout for the damage to the boat.

A spokesman for the boat’s insurer Zurich said it was "still considering our options" over the insurance payout.

Three weeks after the fire, Mr Lewis completed his $3.5 million purchase of a property neighbouring the Bylong Valley farm of the Obeid family.

Mr Lewis admitted at a subsequent Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry that he stood to make $14 million by selling his property for four times its value to the company that won the tender to explore for coal over the group of properties that had been bought by the Obeids and their friends.

The inquiry also heard Mr Lewis was to give the Obeids 30 per cent of any profits from the sale of his property.

Eddie Obeid, his son Moses and former mining minister Ian Macdonald will face trial next year in relation to the issuing of the coal exploration licence at Bylong Valley.

The Bellevue function centre had been the target of previous arson attempts.

In June 2015, a fire was deliberately lit in the building.

In 1993, not long after Eddie Obeid and Mr Wehbe had purchased the mini-shopping centre and opened The Bellevue on the second floor, one of the shopping centre tenants, a tobacconist, noticed petrol dripping through the ceiling and called the police.

Obeid later claimed the attempted petrol bombing was sparked by a disgruntled contestant in a Lebanese beauty contest that had been held at The Bellevue earlier in the week.

Obeid's newspaper El Telegraph also had mixed fortunes. In July 1983, fire destroyed the newspaper offices in Garners Avenue, Marrickville.

In 1992, fire again severely damaged the El Telegraph office.

Fires have also struck the Obeids domestically. Neighbours reported the Obeids' Concord house was twice damaged by fire.

Then there was the famous Offset Alpine fire in which the heavily-insured printing plant was destroyed on Christmas Eve 1993.

At the time of the fire, Obeid's son Paul was a director of the company.