Convicted Adelaide drug house murderers Alfred Claude Rigney, Matt Bernhard Tenhoopen and Aaron Donald Carver launch appeal bid
Three men convicted of murdering a man at a drug house will appeal their convictions because the jury heard they had been smoking ice an hour before the killing.
Police & Courts
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Three men found guilty of murdering Albanian refugee Urim Gjabri at a northern suburbs drug house will appeal their convictions before the Supreme Court.
Court documents show that Alfred Claude Rigney, 44, Matt Bernhard Tenhoopen, 25, and Aaron Donald Carver, 37 contend the verdict of the jury was “unsafe and unsatisfactory”.
In particular the appeal documents show that Carver will argue that there should have been a mistrial because the jury was told several of the men had been smoking methamphetamine in the hour leading up to the murder.
The three men and Benjamin John Mitchell, 33, who is also expected to lodge an appeal, were found guilty of the October 8, 2018 murder of Mr Gjabri at a Para Vista drug house.
During the trial the jury heard that Tenhoopen, Carver, Mitchell and a fourth man had all driven from Murray Bridge together with the intent of robbing the drug house.
Near the house the four men met Rigney who had driven there separately. Their approach to the house was caught on nearby security cameras.
It is unclear whether the men expected to find Mr Gjabri asleep in the house in a modest set up, but, hours after the men had left with the drug crop the 46-year-old lay dying from a fatal head wound.
The drug crop inside the house had been stripped and taken to Tenhoopen’s home in Murray Bridge where he filmed his then girlfriend stripping the branches.
Mitchell gave evidence at the trial that he, Carver, Tenhoopen and the fourth man had smoked methamphetamine as they drove down the South Eastern Freeway.
In the absence of the jury, Bill Boucaut QC, for Carver, asked Justice David Lovell to order a mistrial because the drug was associated with “going crazy and attacking doctors and nurses and so on”.
“There is a risk that the jury may think that if these men had consumed methamphetamine, they’re likely to have been in a more violent or aggressive mood,” he said.
“Therefore just the sort of people who, after breaking into a house and finding someone unexpectedly, proceed to assault them severely.”
Scott Henchliffe QC, for Rigney, and Nick Healy, for Tenhoopen, joined the application for a mistrial.
Justice Lovell refused the application, directing the jury to draw no inferences from the claim the men had been smoking methamphetamine.
The mention of drug smoking was not the first application for a mistrial during the proceedings.
Earlier in the hearings a witness had appeared physically scared of the accused men sitting in the dock, pulling up his hoody and asking to retract the statement he had given to police.
The witness, who initially failed to appear and had to be arrested and brought before the court, had a long history of offending and said he had shared a cell with Tenhoopen.
During their time together the witness said Tenhoopen had told him about “standing over” a man for his drugs.
After the witness was allowed to appear via video link from another room in the courthouse, the four men’s legal team applied for a mistrial but denied.
The three men’s appeals are expected to be heard this month and early in the new year.
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