Teen accused of killing Adrian Pacione seeks bail to sit VCE
A Melbourne teenager accused of murdering an innocent tradie in a drive-by shooting is seeking to be freed on bail to sit his VCE exams.
Police & Courts
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A teen accused of the drive-by shooting of an innocent tradie wants to be freed on bail so he can take his VCE exams.
Tahmid Rahman, 18, one of three men charged with murdering Adrian Pacione, 20, fronted the Supreme Court on Friday to beg the judge to free him from Melbourne Assessment Prison before his first exam on Tuesday.
The prosecution has opposed bail, saying the charges are serious and that Corrections Victoria could arrange for him to sit exams in jail.
Justice Paul Coghlan said that if Mr Rahman faced a less serious charge, he could well have been granted bail: “But the fact of the matter is he’s charged with murder.”
Police allege Mr Rahman, alongside Adam Tiba and Abdullah Hammoud, both 21, drove to a home in Ella Court, Lalor on the night of July 18 “to seek revenge”. They failed to force their way inside.
Shots were then fired into the home, one hitting Mr Pacione in the head as he watched TV in a back room. He died two days later.
Police have said Mr Pacione was not the intended target, and was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The third-year apprentice had been at the house to support a mate mourning the death of a family member.
The trio accused of his murder were arrested and charged last month following a public appeal for information by police, who released CCTV images of a car in the street.
The court heard the shooting was over a drug dispute.
Mr Hartnett said the police case against his client was weak, with no evidence placing him at the scene of the shooting or that he had knowledge of a presence of a gun.
But Justice Coghlan said text messages indicated Mr Rahman was actively involved, and “might be characterised a leader of them”.
The court also heard the Rahman family’s phones were being monitored by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. Mr Rahman’s brother left Australia in 2015, got “into all sorts of terrible trouble in the Middle East”, and was now dead.
But Mr Hartnett said ASIO had no interest in his client “other than an ongoing object of surveillance”.
Justice Coghlan reserved his decision until Monday.
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