Accused underworld killer says police have wrong man
Tara Cosoleto |
One of the men accused of gunning down a gangland figure in a planned underworld hit claims police got the wrong man.
Rabii Zahabe, 26, was not one of the two masked shooters who attacked Gavin Preston in broad daylight, defence barrister Paul Smallwood told a Victorian jury.
Instead, the evidence at its highest showed he might have hitched a ride to NSW with one of the shooters after the killing, Mr Smallwood said.
“(Mr Zahabe) has been hauled before the Supreme Court and put on trial for crimes he did not commit,” the barrister said in his closing address on Thursday.
Zahabe and his co-accused Jaeden Tito, 25, are accused of gunning down Preston, 50, in Melbourne’s northwest on September 9, 2023.
Footage played to the jury showed Preston and his friend Abbas Maghnie seated outside Sweet Lulus cafe in Keilor when two men dressed in black jumped out of a car and fired shots.
Preston was fatally struck while Mr Maghnie was also hit with one bullet but survived, and the two accused have also been charged with his attempted murder.
The jury was previously told Preston was a gangland figure and police believed his murder was a planned underworld contract killing.
The exact motive remained unclear but it was known that Preston had amassed a number of enemies, senior crown prosecutor Kristie Churchill SC told the jury.
“Gavin Preston moved in underworld circles … he definitely was not a perfect person,” she said in her closing address.
But his “extensive criminal history” did not mean he should have been executed in public, the prosecutor said.
She urged the jury to find Zahabe and Tito were the gunmen responsible for the attack, saying the case was strong albeit circumstantial.
Ms Churchill pointed to DNA evidence which allegedly connected Zahabe and Tito to two balaclavas and a glove believed to have been used in the attack.
DNA also allegedly linked the pair to three getaway cars used immediately after the alleged murder.
It’s alleged Tito set fire to the first car and burnt his arm, with Ms Churchill telling the jury social media videos showed the 25-year-old with a bandage on his arm in the days after the shooting.
The pair are accused of fleeing to NSW in a chauffeured vehicle, and later searching online for photos of Preston and the terms “no extradition countries”.
But Mr Smallwood told the jury the prosecution had discounted the possibility there was a third person who entered one of the getaway vehicles after the shooting.
He pointed to a witness who claimed she saw a “tallish man” get out of the driver’s side of a Toyota Camry, even though prosecutors alleged the two gunmen exited from the passenger side.
The two men who left from the passenger door were captured on CCTV later leaving in the chauffeured vehicle.
Mr Smallwood said it was open for the jury to conclude the “tallish man” was one of the shooters and he stayed in Victoria instead of going to NSW.
“One of the men in (the chauffer) car was not one of the shooters,” he told the jury.
“At its highest – at its absolute highest – the evidence might suggest that Mr Zahabe was that third person.”
Mr Smallwood will continue on Friday before Tito’s barrister begins his final address to the jury.
AAP