Crime boss Nabil Maghnie wanted son to leave country after Love Machine shooting
Crime boss Nabil Maghnie wanted to send his panicked son overseas after a blunder led police to make a breakthrough in the Love Machine nightclub shootings.
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Crime boss Nabil Maghnie wanted to send his teen gunman son overseas in the aftermath of the double-fatal Love Machine nightclub shootings.
Jacob Elliott, who killed two people when he opened fire on the venue, was panicked and angry when it emerged police had made a major breakthrough in the case.
Elliott had been staying at his notorious father’s apartment at Docklands when it was revealed associates had made a huge blunder after the April 15, 2019, drive-by attack.
They had been instructed to incinerate a dumped Suzuki used by those involved in the shootings.
But they torched the wrong Suzuki and left the intended target untouched across the road in Simmons St, Prahran, exposing Elliott to the risk of incriminating forensic evidence.
A witness later told police Elliott, then aged 18, contacted his father on Wickr, a secure communications app.
“They torched the wrong car. My DNA’s in that car,” Elliott’s trial heard he said in a message to his dad.
Maghnie responded: “I’ve got to send you overseas.”
The Docklands flat was bugged, and listening devices also picked up an incriminating comment days later.
“They are dumb c---s, blew up a Suzuki right next to this Suzuki,” Elliott said. He had good reason for concern.
A forensic examination found his fingerprints on the dashboard of the intact Suzuki. His DNA and that of his mate Allan Fares were also found in the vehicle, which had circled Love Machine before the shootings.
Detectives from the Sector task force had already been investigating Elliott, who fired the fatal shots from a Porsche driven by Fares.
Also under the microscope was Elliott’s mate Moussa Hamka, who police accused of burning the Suzuki.
Hamka, 28, was with Nabil Maghnie at his apartment on the night of the shooting with another of his sons, Ali, who complained he had been bashed by Love Machine security staff.
Hamka was given the gun used by his friend in the Love Machine shooting. Police later found the weapon in his bedroom. He told investigators he had picked up the weapon in a Fawkner park after being contacted by someone unknown on Wickr and told he would be paid $3000 to collect it.
Elliott, now 21, and Fares, 24, are awaiting sentencing after being convicted of murdering security guard Aaron Osmani and patron Richard Arow when four shots were fired outside Love Machine.
Hamka was convicted of assisting an offender in relation to holding the murder weapon but not over setting the Suzuki alight.
Maghnie was shot dead in January, 2020, after a confrontation at a house in Epping. No one has been charged with that killing.
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