Phone-up-bum triple killer Kon Georgiou almost got away with it
HE MADE headlines this month for refusing to move a phone from his backside, but few people know how close this triple-murderer came to getting away with the shocking crime that landed him in Supermax.
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THE VIOLENT Supermax prisoner who made headlines this month after hiding a mobile phone up his backside is a convicted triple-murderer who was just moments away from fleeing the country when he was ‘accidentally’ captured.
Rebels bikie Constantine Georgiou was sentenced to more than 30 years in jail for the murders of three Bandidos members and the attempted murder of another during a bloody shootout at an inner-city nightclub in November 1997. His fellow club member Bruce Malcolm Harrison was also convicted for the deaths and received the same sentence.
On February 11 this year Georgiou was found to have shoved a mobile phone up his bottom and refused to remove it after it was detected during a body scan, even going on a hunger strike in an attempt to keep it inside.
But the inevitable finally happened last week when a subsequent scan showed the prisoner was free of any phones in any part of his body.
Despite the somewhat humorous nature of Georgiou’s recent return to the spotlight, he was part of a very bloody part of Sydney’s history and he very nearly got away with it.
During that November 1997 shootout, Bandidos club president Michael Kulakowski was killed, together with Sergeant-At-Arms Sasha Milenkovic and younger member Rick De Stoop in the basement of the Black Market club in Chippendale.
Georgiou and Harrison were seen fleeing from the scene in a luxury Porsche and were chased through the narrow streets of Surry Hills and Redfern by police, who said a number of weapons were tossed from the windows of the car. Harrison would be caught near the dumped car, suffering from a gunshot wound to the hand, but his partner escaped and promptly dropped off the radar.
It wouldn’t be until several months later, in February 1998, that the wanted bikie would be discovered by chance after a random Customs check on a cargo ship due to set sail for Japan from Botany Bay.
Georgio was on board the vessel Arafura carrying falsified documentation, including a British passport and two drivers licences, under the name Johnifern Marian Ross, together with almost $11,000 in cash.
Not convinced the passenger was who he claimed he was, Customs officials detained Georgiou and his true identity was revealed.
When questioned by police after his eventual capture, the suspect denied any involvement in the grizzly bloodbath at Black Market and tried to convince investigators he wasn’t near the notorious club when the murders took place.
Georgiou admitted he had been at the club earlier that day with Harrison but he and partner Wendy Duncan met up with another couple and left to get something to eat, telling cops his co-accused had stayed behind, as had his Porsche.
Unable to drive because he’d been drinking, he said he’d given his car keys to security guard and fellow bikie Justin Culshaw who had been working the door at the club.
Culshaw was also the one who had alerted Georgiou to what had transpired in the Black Market basement, he claimed, and that he had fled because he feared for reprisals and refused to go to police because he didn’t trust them.
But Justice John Dowd found the evidence overwhelmingly pointed to Georgiou and Harrison carrying out the shootings. Forensic examination of two of the victims showed they were killed execution style.
The court heard that there were at least six men in the basement at the time the shootings took place - the four victims and the two prisoners.
Unlike the usual turf war violence between bikie gangs, it was heard that the murders weren’t over drugs or weapons but a woman.
Bandidos president Kulakowski was in a relationship with a Rebels woman and that was enough to spark the bloodbath.
In handing down his sentence, Justice Dowd told the court that while many people would think the murder of three men would automatically fall into the worst type of crime, he said it was less extreme than the “torture, horror and the terrorising or gross injury being done to young children”.
“After due consideration and taking into account the ages of each prisoner I believe that, although a very lengthy sentence is warranted, the facts in this case, horrific though they are, do not warrant the imposition of life imprisonment for the prisoners,” he said.
He handed both Georgiou and Harrison 28 years for the murders and an additional five years for the attempted murder.
Georgiou will be eligible for release in February 2031.
Originally published as Phone-up-bum triple killer Kon Georgiou almost got away with it
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