Rozelle fire: CCTV of murder accused Adeel Khan filling up cans of petrol days before blaze
THIS is the CCTV footage prosecutors allege shows a Rozelle store proprietor filling up cans with petrol as he plotted a inferno that would break out three days later and lead to the deaths of three sleeping people.
NSW
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THIS is the CCTV footage prosecutors allege shows a Rozelle store proprietor filling up cans with petrol as he plotted a inferno that would break out three days later and lead to the deaths of three sleeping people.
A Supreme Court jury has heard that, $400,000 in debt and with rent and bills overdue, Adeel Ahmad Khan was a financially desperate man when he set a petrol fuelled blaze inside the store.
The trial is now in its second week and today heard evidence from two of the female employees of the convenience store, as well as scientific experts.
On the opening day of the trial for Khan — whose store gutted by fire in the early hours of September 4, 2014 — the state’s senior Crown prosecutor Mark Tedeschi QC outlined a case which he says will establish Khan acted “with reckless indifference to human life”.
The 44-year-old has pleaded not guilty to a string of charges, including the murders of 31-year- old mother Bianka O’Brien, her infant son Jude and 27-year-old Christopher Noble, who lived in apartments above the shop.
His defence is that he was accosted by armed robbers who tied him up, blindfolded him and then set the shop ablaze.
Bianka’s widower John O’Brien and Mr Noble’s two flatmates have given evidence to the trial.
The jury were told Khan — who still had four years left to run on the lease of the shop — was battling a debt of $373,000 “to various financial institutions”, plus energy bills of almost $10,000 and a $3000 bill to “grocery and tobacco suppliers”.
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He was also three days overdue on his monthly rent of $8800, the court heard.
“Six out of the 10 months he had the shop, it operated at a loss,” Mr Tedeschi told the jury.
Mr Tedeschi took the jury through the days leading up to the fire, and said they would be played CCTV footage which showed Khan filling up four containers with a total of 38.8 litres of petrol, while appearing to be trying to shield himself from view.
That footage from the Croydon Park service station was played to the jury last Thursday.
The shop closed as normal at 11pm on September 3, and it is alleged by prosecutors that between that time and 4am the following morning, when the fire broke out, “the accused was in his shop setting up an elaborate system for destroying his shop by fire”.
The jury heard that at 2.47am, Khan switched off most of the power to the store, which the Crown alleges was to avoid a spark igniting on an appliance.
“This shows he was aware of the risk of a catastrophic explosion,” Mr Tedeschi told the jury.
The trial continues before Justice Elizabeth Fullerton.
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