Bali shooting widow pulls out of trial over security fears

Melbourne/Bali: The widow of a Melbourne man gunned down in Bali has pulled out from testifying at the trial of his accused killers, citing concerns about a break-in back home as further details emerge of the Australian gangland shooting that rocked the holiday island.

Three Australians face the death penalty in Indonesia for the alleged attack, but Bali prosecutors say the three survivors of the shooting have gone into hiding and refuse to testify.

Jazmyn Gourdeas (second from right), the widow of Zivan Radmanovic, in a Bali court supported by family at the start of the trial.Credit: Amilia Rosa

Jazmyn Gourdeas hid under bedcovers as helmeted intruders burst into her luxury villa and fatally shot her husband, Zivan Radmanovic, in the middle of the night on June 14. Another Melbourne man, Sanar Ghanim, a former kickboxer with underworld connections, was also shot multiple times and beaten during the attack but survived.

Gourdeas returned to Bali last month to testify for the prosecution and face her husband’s accused killers at trial. But her lawyer has since revealed to this masthead that she fled the island last week after her house in Melbourne was broken into. She claimed two suspicious men were captured on CCTV footage ringing her front doorbell days before someone broke through her front door.

It was unclear if anything was stolen, but her children had already been moved to a new home, her lawyer, Sary Latief, said. Gourdeas had returned home at once, “concerned it was related to her upcoming testimony”, she said.

The break-in has been reported to Australian police and follows the firebombing of a Melbourne beauty salon owned by Gourdeas’ sister and the partner of Ghanim, Daniella, shortly after the sisters first returned from Bali. Daniella had also witnessed the shooting. Prosecutors told the court this week that she and Ghanim had refused to testify in person, citing security risks, though Ghanim has since been spotted by media in Bali.

Sources say the Melbourne attacks are the latest warning for Ghanim, who is believed to have been living in Bali for more than a year on the run from a crime syndicate at home.

Twenty kilograms of stolen cocaine is at the centre of the dispute, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation. Police raided a house in Melbourne shortly after the Bali shooting, the sources alleged, and found the cocaine, valued at nearly $10 million.

Ghanim shares a child with the stepdaughter of late crime boss Carl Williams and has a history of drug and weapons offences. Radmanovic had also been charged after being caught with drugs in recent months in Australia, but was not considered a major player in the underworld and was described as a devoted father of six.

After a dramatic manhunt for the gunmen unfolded across Bali, Sydneysiders Darcy Jenson and Mevlut Coskun, were arrested fleeing the country along with Paea I Middlemore Tupou from Melbourne. They are believed to be a crew of small-time crooks hired for the alleged murder.

Sanar Ghanim (inset) after the shooting. His partner’s South Yarra beauty salon was firebombed a month later as the couple returned to Melbourne. Credit: Monique Westermann / Instagram / Nine

Last month, the trial heard that the shooting was ordered via an encrypted app by a fourth Australian whom police will not identify.

While police allege the ambush was meticulously planned, with Jenson in Bali several weeks beforehand, Radmanovic and his wife had arrived on the island to stay with her sister and Ghanim only two days before the shooting.

Jenson had been instructed to rent a nearby villa in Bali and to arrange getaway cars, balaclavas and other items needed for the crime, Indonesian police allege. He waited outside as Coskun and Tupou allegedly broke into the villa with a sledgehammer and gunned down Radmanovic and Ghanim with nine-millimetre handguns.

The accused Australians face a panel of three Bali judges – Coskun and Tupou for the premeditated murder of Radmanovic and the attempted murder of Ghanim, and Jenson for assisting both crimes.

Ghanim and the Gourdeas sisters have previously told prosecutors they did not know who had carried out the attack or would want Radmanovic dead. The court will try to call them again to testify next week, though prosecutors have said they do not know where they are currently. Statements made by the trio to police after the attack may yet be read out in court.

Ghanim, who was shot multiple times but escaped his attackers, has previously told investigators he protected himself by tucking his head down in a kickboxing stance.

A man staying nearby on the night of the shooting told the court last week how he had rushed into the street after hearing gunshots. There he saw Ghanim bloodied and screaming, “I’m dying, I’m dying. Someone shot me”. One of the alleged shooters had complained he couldn’t start his bike before they fled on motorbikes, the man said.

Two taxi drivers hired by the accused shooters also testified that the men had gone out looking for prostitutes and to a tattoo parlour in the days before the shooting.

Police inspect the crime scene of the fatal Bali villa shooting in Munggu, Badung.Credit: The Age

Jenson’s lawyers have claimed that the Sydney plumber thought he was helping a “mystery friend” in exchange for a free trip to Bali when he arranged the logistics around the attack, without realising that anyone would get hurt.

The Australian Federal Police did not say if it was conducting its own investigations into the shooting and the underworld war in Australia, instead directing inquiries to Indonesian police.

The Australian government has been providing consular assistance to the accused men since their arrest, and Foreign Minister Penny Wong has reiterated Australia’s opposition to the death penalty.

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