Greek newspaper releases CCTV footage of John Macris’ execution
CCTV footage released by a Greek newspaper has captured the assassination of Sydney crime figure John Macris in Greece. The video shows a man dressed in grey and black running towards a black car while firing a number of shots into the passenger side door. WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO.
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THIS is the moment Aussie gangster John Macris was gunned down in cold blood just outside his luxury Athens home last week.
CCTV footage released by Athens newspaper Kathimerini shows a man dressed in grey and black, running towards a black car while firing three shots into the passenger’s side of the vehicle in a seaside suburb in the Greek capital city on October 31.
Macris had just entered the car and was on his way out. After being hit, he got out and tried to escape. The Greek newspaper reported the assailant allegedly followed him and from a distance of half a metre, continued to shoot him.
Police say Mr Macris was shot four times with a 9mm handgun and died at the scene.
The footage was first published by Athens newspaper Kathimerini.
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Witnesses have said one of the hitmen pulled the trigger on a 9mm pistol while shouting in Greek, “I’m going to finish him off.”
Authorities are looking at the businessman’s activities in Greece to try to find a motive for the killing and to identify the assassin.
Family and friends of the 46-year-old Greek-Australian mourned his death at a church service this week. His wife, reality TV star and model Viktoria Karida, with whom he had two children, was sobbing as she was escorted up the church steps.
For the past seven years, the Greek-Australian has lived in exile in Athens socialising with city’s oligarchs, shipowners, singers and media stars and was often seen gracing the pages of the glossy Greek tabloid mags with his TV presenter and former Playboy model wife Karida, with whom he shares a young daughter, Alexandra, and son Achilles.
The brazen yet shrewd gangster was unheeding in his drug dealings and once confessed in court to recklessly using his father, then 75, as a drug mule to transport $13 million or 50 kilograms of methamphetamine oil — enough to make $12.5 million worth of the drug ice — in the back of a Ford Falcon.
Police were investigating whether Macris’ death was related to his potential involvement in the drug trade or in organised crime. He reportedly owned a security company. Authorities say he had run-ins with police in the past, both in Australia and in Greece.
A warrant for Macris’s arrest had been issued in Sydney for failing to attend court for sentencing on a conviction for driving while his license was cancelled.
It’s believed Macris relocated to Greece to avoid the warrant. Police sources told The Daily Telegraph Macris’s death was unlikely to have local connections.
Macris had previously had a feud with John Ibrahim over a nightclub business partnership. Two of Ibrahim’s brothers, Fadi and Michael, were charged with conspiring to murder Macris in 2009.
Police alleged the brothers mistakenly believed Macris was behind the near-fatal shooting of Fadi in 2009 for which has ever been charged.
A jury in 2013 acquitted Michael and another man Rodney Atkinson of conspiracy to murder. Prosecutors later dropped the same charge against Fadi. It is not suggested John Ibrahim or his family had any connection with Macris’s death,
Sydney criminal lawyer Brett Galloway, who represented Macris, described him as a small-time drug dealer with aspirations to become a big-time gangster.
“He was a nondescript sort of dude who wanted to be a gangster,” Mr Galloway said.