I Catch Killers: Khalid Baker will stop at nothing to clear his name
When he should have been boxing for Australia Khalid Baker was instead behind bars for murder. He tells Gary Jubelin in I Catch Killers he will stop at nothing to clear his name. Listen to the podcast.
I Catch Killers
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Khalid Baker had the world at his feet.
He had overcome a tough childhood, racism and his own admitted hooligan behaviour to get his life on track as a rising star of the Australian amateur boxing scene.
The 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne were on the horizon and an Australian uniform was his for the taking. For Baker it was a matter of when he won gold, not if.
But Baker would never box for glory. Instead he would be behind bars on a murder charge — which he would later be convicted of — after a warehouse party in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick descended into a brawl in November 2005.
Don’t miss Gary Jubelin’s compelling one-on-one interview with Khalid Baker, convicted of murder but fighting to clear his name. Listen to I Catch Killers below.
PART 1 – ‘I am innocent’ ‘ Baker’s fight for justice
Part 2: 13 years jail – How Baker found peace behind bars
Baker, having left prison in 2018 after 13 years and restarted his quest for a world boxing title, delves into the night in question, his quest to clear his name and his road to sporting glory in a gripping episode of Gary Jubelin’s I Catch Killers podcast.
His case has been taken up by RMIT’s Bridge of Hope Innocence Initiative and a petition is before Victoria’s Attorney-General.
“I’m never going to stop until I clear my name,” Baker tells Jubelin. “At the end of the day I’ve served my time and I served it in the harshest ways that most people would never understand. But I came out of it.
“If it’s today, tomorrow, 10 years from now or 20 years from now, I’m never going to give up until this gets overturned.”
Going back to that night in Brunswick in 2005 one thing not in question is that it ended in the tragic death of 22-year-old Albert Snowball. Snowball was pushed from a window on a warehouse landing stairwell and died from his injuries two days later.
Baker’s co-accused, known as LM, whose real name cannot be used, has always claimed that he was the one to touch Snowball last, that it happened during a scuffle and that he didn’t mean to push him to his death.
LM gave this version of events to police during a recorded interview the day after the party. He repeated it in a 2018 media interview when he maintained he was “100 per cent” responsible and not Baker.
The 2008 trial heard different versions of what transpired on the night in question with Baker and LM claiming they were trying to break up a fight started by their friend Ali and that the crowd turned on them. Others claimed Khalid and Ali started attacking partygoers.
“I was heading down the stairs and had a window crack or shatter. Then by the time I got to the outside at the front of the building where the pavement was, Albert (is) laying on the ground there,” Baker tells Jubelin.
But his version was not the one that the jury believed. Under hearsay laws at the time in Victoria, which have been changed, LM’s admission to police that he pushed Snowball could not be used as part of Baker’s defence.
LM would be found not guilty while Baker, identified by some witnesses as the one to have pushed Snowball, was convicted of murder and sentenced to 17 years jail.
Baker believes that those witnesses confused the identities of the Australians of African background at the party.
He refused to take an early plea of manslaughter during pre-trial negotiations, even if it meant serving a lesser sentence.
“Why would I say I’ve done something if I didn’t do it. I have to be firm on what I believe in life,” Baker tells Jubelin.
“Sometimes what you believe might hurt you. But it’s good that you’ve never bended because (that’s the) easy road. I don’t believe in taking the easy road.”
And it was anything but the easy road in prison where, instead of fighting for Commonwealth gold, he was trading punches in a prison brawl over new shoes his mother gave him that were coveted by a fellow prisoner.
Baker also carries a scar the length of his stomach after being stabbed during another incident.
But he tells Jubelin he had to find a way to endure, to get through his term without being overcome by rage fuelled by the guilty verdict.
“I remember when my mum got sick and she had cancer, that’s when my world changed because I said to myself: ‘I’m not going to allow my mother to keep coming to the visitor’s centre and see me angry or see me just beat up’.”
“I just had to start training myself, my mindset to say: ‘You know what? It’s happened. We’re going to get over this one way or another’. But you have to be strong. You have to be positive. Things will happen when you believe positive things will happen, positive things will come into your life.”
Baker, who goes into further detail about his time in jail with Jubelin on the podcast, put his focus into his boxing, using flattened toilet rolls and socks on his hands in place of boxing pads and gloves.
Despite spending the entirety of his 20s behind bars he still is determined to win that boxing world title.
Since leaving prison he has won the Victorian Cruiserweight title in what Baker believes is a stepping stone to an Australian and world title.
“I’m in the best shape of my life and I’m going to get that world title like I’ve always wanted.
“And that’s it. One way or another I’m going to get it.
“I’m not chasing for that world title, I’m going to get that title.”
And, with that same will and determination, he says he is also going to prove his innocence.
“I am getting on with my life,” he tells Jubelin. “But at the same time, I want to correct what was wrong, wrongly done to me. I’m innocent.”
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Originally published as I Catch Killers: Khalid Baker will stop at nothing to clear his name
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