Bikie sniper death could mark ‘shift’ in crime contract killings

He set up his rifle, calmed his breathing and fired a bullet into a senior bikie figure — it could mark a ‘monumental shift’ in contract killings.

Senior Rebels member Nick Martin was execued in public by a sniper’s bullet.

The sniper killing of a leading bikie marked a “monumental shift in organised crime contract killings,” a former Victorian murder investigator says.

Simon Illingworth, who worked at the Victoria Police homicide squad, said the gunman who killed senior Rebels member Nick Martin at a Perth speedway meeting was clearly a professional and had potentially “changed everything”.

Martin died last month after being shot in the chest by a shooter who pulled the trigger of a high-powered rifle from more than 300 metres away.

Mr Illingworth, in an opinion piece in today’s Herald Sun, said it was an extraordinary departure from the conventional execution-style deaths of Melbourne’s gangland war era.

Paramedics on scene after Martin was gunned down at Perth Motorplex. Picture: 7 News

Most of those were blasted from close-range, many “sitting ducks” taken out as they got in and out of cars.

But Martin had just settled into his seat in a crowded environment where he would have been entitled to feel safe.

“That’s when the other man got to work and set up his high-tech, high-powered rifle and stand, made scope adjustments in fractions of a millimetre based on wind speed and direction and then waited for two things to coincide,” Mr Illingworth wrote.

“First, the target presenting clearly in the scope and second, a drag car to cause enough roaring engine noise to cover the ‘bang’.

“Before squeezing the trigger your breathing has to be just right too; this man needed just one shot to kill from over 300 metres away.”

The procession at Martin’s funeral arrives at Pinaroo.

Mr Illingworth said authorities had every reason for deep concern.

He said the modus operandi was in stark contrast to every other Australian organised crime hit that he had studied in recent times.

“It was methodically planned, using cover and camouflage, a long range, highly sophisticated weapon only matched by the skill of its handler,” Mr Illingworth said.

“For decades Melbourne’s underworld killings have been ambushes, with victims often trapped, sitting in the driver’s seat of a car. The hit man — most likely armed with a handgun or shotgun —let fly from close range.”

Mr Illingworth said many underworld killing victims left themselves exposed through their movements and failure to take precautions routine

But he said a sniper able to murder as in the Martin case changed all that because of the expanded range of options for striking, making crowds a potential bonus and use of open spaces an option.

“This killing has the hallmarks of someone with thousands of hours of practice or with professional or military training. I hope it isn’t the latter,” he said.

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