Zillmere park murder case: several accused to ask to drop charges

A number of the 13 men charged with stabbing a teenage boy to death during a brawl in a Brisbane park are set to ask their charges be dropped due to a lack of evidence, a court has heard.

A number of the 13 men charged with stabbing a teenage boy to death during a brawl in a Brisbane park are set to ask their charges be dropped due to a lack of evidence, a court has heard.

Solicitor Andrew Bale, who is representing one of the men accused of the murder of Girum Mekonnen, told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that “there are a number of defendants who are making an argument that they have no case to answer”.

Mr Bale said lawyers for his client’s co-offenders spoke of their plan to make a no-case submission at the start of the committal in July.

Girum Mekonnen died in the Zillmere fight.

Mr Bale said the no-case submission - based on insufficient evidence - would be made to the Magistrate again who hears the committal hearing when it resumes for three days from December 19.

Mr Bale was in the Supreme Court representing his client Joseph Lokolong, who unsuccessfully applied for bail for the second time.

Lokolong is accused of taking part in the attack at O’Callaghan Park, Zillmere, in Brisbane’s north on September 13, 2020.

Crown prosecutor Aleksandra Nikolic told the court that the prosecution had a strong case that Lokolong had a “common unlawful purpose” with his co-accused given the amount of planning that went into the killing, as well as the use of weapons and travelling in a convoy to Zillmere from Ipswich.

Girum Mekonnen.

Mr Bale argued the crown case against his client was not strong but it would survive committal.

He submitted that the full brief of evidence was not yet disclosed, as audio recordings of witness interviews were found to be missing during the start of the committal hearing two months ago.

He told the court that there were also “significant problems” with the “handful” of police witnesses who have identified Lokolong as taking part in the fatal melee.

“Each of those witnesses who come forward to identify they all describe him differently, describing him as doing different things, described him as being armed with different weapons, describing him as being clothed differently. So there’s some fairly significant issues in relation to the identification,” Mr Bale told the court.

Lokolong has previous convictions for 16 breaches of bail and failures to appear in court, the court heard.

Justice Glenn Martin refused to grant Lokolong bail, stating that the length of time he has spent in prison on remand did not outweigh the risks of him failing to appear.