The crime boss, his estranged son and the double murder outside a Prahran nightclub

Eleven hours after Jacob Elliott discharged a small .32 Mauser handgun from the passenger seat of a stolen Porsche in 2019, killing two people outside a Prahran nightclub, his father, crime boss Nabil Maghnie, asked him if he wanted to go to the footy.

The invitation to watch Richmond play Sydney at Marvel Stadium was an odd request. Jacob, then aged 18, had for years been trying to get closer to his dad, a prominent and feared Melbourne underworld figure.

“I just initially said yes to him because that’s what I always do,” Jacob testified during his recent murder trial in Victoria’s Supreme Court of his father’s request.

But he soon changed his mind. “Once I got the opportunity, I just messaged him back and said: ‘Listen, I’m not feeling up to it tonight, I’m just gonna kick back’ ... I’m not gonna go to a football game after what just happened. I wasn’t in the right state.

“I wanted to be a part of his life and ... be his son ... I didn’t necessarily want to be a part of that other side of things.”

Nabil Maghnie (centre) was a feared crime figure.Credit: Chris Hopkins

Jacob’s realisation, however, came too late.

Last month, Jacob received two life sentences for killing security guard Aaron Khalid Osmani and club patron Richard Arow. His testimony, recordings of his father’s phone calls, and evidence from friends and family, all of which came to light at his trial, provide a glimpse into a family whose relationships would culminate in one of the most serious acts of public violence in Melbourne in recent years.

The invitation to the football captures the fraught relationship at the heart of the nightclub killings: a father who wanted to keep his son secret, and a son desperate for his approval.

For Nabil (who was himself slain just nine months later), the Love Machine murders were not a new chapter in the underworld war, but a final act in a personal feudwith the nightclub’s owner.

Nabil’s daughter Sabrine, known for posting glamorous pictures on Instagram, was previously banned from the club, while his underage son Ali had been ejected on the night of the shooting. Angry and intoxicated, Ali called his father from the cab and said he had been manhandled out of the venue by security guards.

For much of his life, Jacob had been estranged from the Maghnie family. He was born from an extramarital relationship Nabil had with Jacob’s mother, Melinda Elliott.

For the Maghnies, family was important. Sabrine got her father’s nickname, “Mad Lebo”, tattooed on her leg after he was gunned down in January 2020 (Nabil had the same moniker inked on his own stomach).

But when Nabil reconnected with Jacob, he told him to keep it a secret. Nabil had largely been absent from his son’s life, but they started to have a relationship in Jacob’s teenage years, by which time Nabil had an extensive criminal history. “I was happy to live in his family world and have that father and son relationship with him,” Elliott told the court, “but I wasn’t happy to be in that.”

A young Jacob Elliott with his father, slain crime boss Nabil Maghnie.

Court documents show Nabil had a criminal record spanning 27 pages dating back to 1993. He was known for brawling with Mongol bikies in a brothel and bashing the doorman of a CBD nightclub for refusing him entry, and was charged with crashing his luxury car at Woodstock, north of the city, while on cocaine. Underworld figures described him as a “dead man walking”.

His temper and propensity for violence had led to fallouts with associates. He was shot three times, and drove himself to hospital after being hit in the cheek in 2016. He had ties to the Comancheros gang, who were suspected of being behind arson attacks and drive-by shootings at South Melbourne strip club Kittens, and was involved in the extortion of nightclub Two Floors Up.

Detectives also suspected he was involved in a string of unsolved shootings and four murders, but he was never charged. He was questioned over the killing of Mitat Rasimi, an associate of drug kingpin Tony Mokbel, and was a suspect in the attempted murder of former bikie Toby Mitchell outside a Brunswick gym in 2011.

At the time of the Love Machine shooting, Nabil had a network of young men – including his son Jacob – dealing with stolen cars and holding guns on his behalf.

Despite his father telling him not to, Jacob had connected with his family by messaging AJ, Nabil’s oldest son, on Facebook. Prior to that, Jacob’s half siblings had never heard of him. He would eventually move into the Maghnie family home in Bundoora and take on the family name on Instagram.

Jacob longed to be a Maghnie, telling the court he strived for his father’s approval and rarely dared to contradict his wishes. “My opinion is that he was pretty hard on me, and he was pretty strict on me, and I struggled with that. I was intimidated of him [sic].”

A stolen black Porsche Cayenne burns after it was used in the Love Machine nightclub shooting.Credit: Nine News

The father-son reconciliation was short-lived. In January 2020, 44-year-old Nabil was gunned down in Epping, in Melbourne’s north amid a dispute over responsibility for a car accident involving a relative. No one has been charged with his murder. In the months leading up to his death, Nabil had become paranoid and was constantly looking over his shoulder, Jacob told the court. He would go on benders and not sleep for days.

Jacob told the court he was haunted by the Love Machine shooting. He said he couldn’t look at himself in the mirror. When his head hit the pillow, he couldn’t help but think about those four shots. He said he had never held a gun before that night, that he’d made a mistake. The gunfire was meant to be warning shots and not intended to kill anybody. “I’m only human and I done a stupid thing [sic]. I made a stupid decision and I wish I could go back and change. I’d do anything to go back and change it.”

Nabil and Jacob’s relationship deteriorated after the shooting. As Jacob struggled, Nabil would berate him. “He was always yelling at me, he was always ‘I am disappointed in you. I’m not like that, I was never like that. Why are you like that?’,” Jacob said. “It was always criticism.”

On June 1, 2019, in a phone call about money, Jacob told Nabil: “I’d do anything just to make you smile, you know. All I want to see is you happy ... When you’re upset it fuckin’ hurts”. Nabil responded: “What I want you to do for that is I want you to look after yourself, look after your family.“

A forensic police officer examines the scene outside Love Machine.Credit: Chris Hopkins

Throughout his murder trial, Jacob adopted different personas. Sometimes he was polite and reflective, seemingly aware of the pull of his father, and the stark changes their relationship had made to his life after being raised mostly by women.

When he was sentenced, though, his demeanour was aggressive and cruel. He laughed in the face of his victims’ grieving families, and clapped during the hearing. He refused to stand for Justice Andrew Tinney, who dismissed Jacob’s claims he fired warning shots, saying both men were willing participants in an attack motivated by a “desire for vengeance”. Tinney said the revenge attack was a serious and calculated crime intended to send a violent and chilling message. “Shut the f--- up and read the sentence,” Jacob swore at Tinney.

“In the devastating scene of carnage you left behind in Prahran, Mr Osmani and Mr Arow lay mortally wounded on the roadway,” Tinney said. “The relative calm of the streets of Melbourne had been disrupted and defiled by a crime of such viciousness and lawlessness as to shock the community. All of this for a petty and mindless act of revenge and retribution.”

A brawl erupted in court after the brother of one of the victims charged at Jacob. “All good,” he muttered to his mother Melinda, who wailed as he was led away.

After all that, it turned out that the April 14 invitation to the football, extended by Nabil to Jacob, was for the wrong day. The Richmond v Sydney game was held at Marvel the following week, on April 20. Nabil might have read the fixture wrong. The father-son trip to the footy was never meant to be.

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