Canberra Comanchero Axel Sidaros appeals conviction for attempted murder after failed hit-job on bikie boss
A private schoolboy turned wannabe Comanchero hitman, represented by barrister Bret Walker SC, wants his convictions for a violent fiery home invasion of a former bikie president torn up and a new trial ordered.
Canberra Star
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Wannabe Comanchero hitman Axel Sidaros’s fate now hangs in the balance after his legal team asked the ACT Court of appeal to tear up his convictions and order a fresh trial.
Sidaros, 25, is serving currently serving a 14-year jail sentence for the attempted murder of the former president of the Canberra chapter of the gang, Peter Zdravkovic.
The armed invasion of Zdravkovic’s home by four men — of whom Sidaros is the only one to face justice — marked a flashpoint in a bitter internal feud among the Canberra chapter of the outlaw bikie gang.
Sidaros’s barrister, Bret Walker SC — who has recently represented Cardinal George Pell and murderer Ron Medich — on Thursday laid out Sidaros’s four-pronged appeal in the ACT Court of Appeal on Thursday.
Much of the appeal deals with the evidence given by jailhouse snitch Zachary John Froome, who cut a deal with prosecutors to give evidence against Sidaros in exchange for a lenient sentence, including for a one-man Nazi-inspired hate campaign against a teenage gir l.
Froome told police Sidaros had confessed to his role in the failed hit-job while on remand at Canberra’s Alexander Maconochie Centre.
Froome, who in a cell neighbouring Sidaros’s at Canberra’s prison, the Alexander Maconochie Centre, told police Sidaros admitted to being “stupid for using his own firearm” during the attack on Zdravkovic and that “that’s probably what brought him down”.
In written submissions to the court, Mr Walker argued the trial judge, Chief Justice Helen Murrell, failed to tell the jury “why prison informers, as a class of witnesses, may be unreliable”.
Mr Walker said Chief Justice Murrell potentially “confused” and “distracted” the jury in her summing up, including when she “segued into an observation” about the difference between circumstantial and direct evidence, when the case against Sidaros was completely circumstantial.
The jury should have been warned Froome’s evidence would have been “easily concocted”, was “difficult to disprove”, was given by a man who was “likely of bad character and may be motivated to fabricate evidence”, Mr Walker argued.
ACT Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold SC told the court the jury could have easily convicted Sidaros even without Froome’s evidence.
Mr Drumgold, in written submissions, said the jury would have “a very clear understanding” of how to deal with Froome’s evidence.
The court will deliver its decision at a later date.
