Three Australians are accused of a fatal ambush in Bali. A fourth was running the show

6 days ago 5

The brazen underworld shooting of two Australians at a luxury villa in Bali that left one man dead was ordered from Australia via an encrypted app, an Indonesian court has heard.

The trial of three Australians accused of the fatal ambush began this week on the usually quiet holiday island, as the widow of slain Melbourne man Zivan “Stipe” Radmanovic watched on from the court gallery.

Jazmyn Gourdeas (second from right), the widow of Zivan Radmanovic, attended the Bali court supported by family for the trial of his accused killers.

Jazmyn Gourdeas hid under the covers as helmeted intruders burst into her rented villa in the middle of the night and fatally shot her husband, Radmanovic, on June 14. Another Melbourne man Sanar Ghanim, a former kickboxer with underworld connections, was also shot multiple times and beaten during the attack – but survived.

Following a dramatic manhunt for the gunmen, Sydneysiders Darcy Jenson and Mevlut Coskun, were arrested fleeing Bali, along with Paea I Middlemore Tupou from Melbourne. All three now face the death penalty.

The men, whose arrests and identities were first revealed by this masthead, are believed to be a crew of small-time crooks hired for the alleged hit. But the story of how a clutch of Australians far from home came to be at the centre of one of the most violent gangland shootings in Bali’s history is still being pieced together.

Jenson is accused of co-ordinating the logistics of the hit and waiting outside with the getaway vehicles, while Coskun and Tupou, who are being tried together, are charged with breaking into the villa and shooting the men using nine-millimetre handguns.

Bali police inspect the crime scene of the fatal villa shooting in Badung.

They now face a panel of three Bali judges – Coskun and Tupou for the premeditated murder of Radmanovic and the attempted murder of Ghanim, and Jenson for assisting both crimes.

On Thursday, prosecutors alleged for the first time that a fourth, unnamed, Australian had directed the ambush via the encrypted messaging app Threema, ordering Jenson to rent a nearby villa in Bali and to arrange getaway cars, balaclavas and other things needed for the crime.

According to the indictment, the hit was planned weeks before Radmanovic’s wife said the couple made the spontaneous decision in May to visit her sister and Ghanim in Bali.

Radmanovic may not have been the intended target, though an autopsy report found he suffered more than one fatal shot in the attack, with bullets piercing his heart as well as his stomach.

Sanar Ghanim (inset) after the shooting and his partner’s South Yarra beauty salon which was firebombed a month later as he returned to Melbourne.

Police allege Jenson was directed via the unnamed Australian to lease a villa in Bali from mid-April until the morning after the ambush in June, paying nearly $3000 in cash. Jenson then allegedly dropped the keys to someone in Thailand, before returning to Australia.

But, two weeks before the attack, Jenson arrived again in Bali. As this masthead revealed in June, he appeared to stake out the area near the crime scene before picking up Coskun and Tupou a few days before the shooting.

Jenson’s lawyers have previously told reporters that the Sydney plumber had been co-operating with police and that he thought he was helping a “mystery friend” when he arranged those things in exchange for a free trip to Bali, without realising that an alleged murder would take place.

Back home in Australia, underworld sources say the ambush relates to a debt running into the millions of dollars. Some believe it was intended as a warning to Ghanim, whose partner’s business has been firebombed in Melbourne since his return from Bali.

Paea I Middlemore Tupou (left) and Mevlut Coskun (centre) in court on Thursday over the shooting of Zivan “Stipe” Radmanovic and Sanar Ghanim.

Ghanim shares a child with the stepdaughter of slain gangland boss Carl Williams and has previously served time in Australia for drug and weapons offences.

He had been living in Bali since at least last year as he set up the villa complex where the group were attacked.

Led out of court masked and handcuffed on Thursday, one of the accused Australians told a reporter they hadn’t intended to kill Ghanim.

Radmanovic, who has been remembered as a devoted father-of-six, was a relatively unknown figure in the underworld, according to sources close to him and the investigation. He knew Ghanim through their partners, who are sisters, and had arrived in Bali only two days before the shooting.

Radmanovic and his wife had planned to stay just five days with her sister and Ghanim to celebrate Jazmyn’s 30th birthday.

Outside court on Thursday, Gourdeas told press via her Indonesian lawyer that she wanted her husband’s accused killers to face the death penalty. She and Ghanim have previously told prosecutors they did not know who had carried out the attack or would want Radmanovic dead.

The brazenness of the shooting, in a country known for the death penalty, has some underworld players worried that violence is escalating as syndicates increasingly “outsource” jobs to inexperienced guns for hire.

The Australian Federal Police did not say if it was conducting its own investigations into the shooting and the underworld war in Australia, instead directing inquiries to Indonesian police.

The Australian government has been providing consular assistance to the accused men since their arrest, and Foreign Minister Penny Wong has reiterated Australia’s opposition to the death penalty.

In Bali on Thursday, armed police and sniffer dogs combed the court, and guarded Gourdeas and her family as they observed the trial, which will continue on November 3.

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