High life of Bali murder target Sanar Ghanim before mate Zivan Radmanovic was gunned down
New details have emerged of how Sanar Ghanim was flush with cash and partying in sky-high exclusive bars before his Bali villa was ambushed and his friend brutally murdered.
Exclusive: Sanar Ghanim was living like a “superstar” before hitmen burst into his Bali villa, shooting him and executing his guest.
The high-life had suited the 34-year-old until the June ambush brought it crashing down.
Back in Melbourne, Ghanim partied at exclusive sky-high bars like a Bond villain.
He even looked the part.
A nose job, required after years of kickboxing, improved his profile.
And according to some, but denied by others, he boasted about being a Calvin Klein model during a prison stint despite his small stature.
Ghanim was also flush with cash and pouring money into Bali ventures, his new hunting ground.
But as it turned out, Ghanim was the one being hunted.
Less than 48 hours after his girlfriend, Daniella Gourdeas, her sister Jazmyn and her husband, Zivan “Stipe” Radmanovic arrived on the island, paradise became purgatory.
The armed men, wearing helmets and face covers, meant business when they bashed through the front door of Ghanim’s flash villa, Casa Santisya, in the minutes after midnight on June 14.
The ambush had been weeks in the making.
Ghanim survived although riddled with bullets before he escaped.
Gourdeas fled into the street at the sound of an “explosion” while her sister, Jazmyn, a mother of six, hid under covers as her husband, Zivan “Stipe” Radmanovic, was tortured then shot dead in a bathroom.
None of them had predicted what was coming their way.
In the days before he was murdered, Radmanovic was riding like the wind.
The 32-year-old was in too much of a hurry for cops on the ground to catch him, so it was up to the eye in the sky to track him.
The new father didn’t notice the Victoria Police helicopter above on May 29, and if he did, he didn’t care.
As he reached speeds of 240km/h through Melbourne’s western suburbs, he could run but he couldn’t hide.
Radmanovic was on his way to meet his sister-in-law from Melbourne’s outer west who owned a flash beauty salon in South Yarra.
It didn’t take long for police to find him at Daniella Gourdeas’s home.
Radmanovic’s bravado vanished as the officers seized his black backpack, bum bag and an Italian-made Dainese motorcycle jacket.
They would allege he was carrying cannabis, methamphetamine, a pocket knife and $3900 in cash.
Then the jackpot.
“Why take the jacket? What for?” Radmanovic was captured on a police officer’s body-worn camera complaining.
“Because it’s evidence,” the arresting officer can be heard replying.
Inside a “very discreet internal pocket” of his leather jacket was more cash, neatly folded in bundles that brought the total to over $16,000.
Radmanovic was charged with crimes including “reckless conduct endangering life” for his dangerous riding.
But he would never face court.
Radmanovic was granted bail and within weeks flew to Bali with his wife and her sister.
After arriving on June 12, the trio met up with Ghanim, who for months had been living at the tranquil Munggu beach.
The intruders entered with intent.
They were unlikely to know who exactly sent them, but knew what they were sent to do.
The hired guns spared the women, but not the men.
Ghanim, an established criminal, is rumoured to have “ripped-off” a serious crime syndicate based in Melbourne before leaving the city.
Radmanovic had either angered them too or was simply unlucky.
Ghanim’s kickboxing training likely saved his life.
But his survival has led to a life on the run.
It has also had consequences for his former partner, Danielle Stephens, the daughter of Roberta Williams, with whom he shares a daughter.
Ghanim, surprisingly, has been able to move in and out of Australia ever since he was allowed to leave Indonesia.
He was in Melbourne just weeks ago before leaving again.
But a motive for the hit remains officially unknown.
Three Australian men were arrested over the Bali ambush following an international manhunt involving Interpol.
They face the prospect of death by firing squad if found guilty of premeditated murder.
Sydney man Darcy Francesco Jenson, 27, alleged to have been “the planner”, will argue he was unaware of the kill plot.
The gunmen are alleged to be another Sydney man, Mevlut Coskun, 23, and Melbourne man Paea I Middlemore Tupou, 26.
The “Bali 3” are being held at the notorious Kerobokan jail awaiting trial.
Back in Melbourne, the Gourdeas sisters have remained tight.
In September, Daniella went to court, supported by her sister, Jazmyn, to claim the money seized from Radmanovic before his brutal end.
She testified in court the seized cash was actually hers.
Daniella gave evidence she had handed the bundles of cash to Radmanovic as a loan just before the cops arrived at her home.
“He was collecting money for his rent,” Daniella said of the $16,400 found by police.
“They were behind … and Bali, he wanted Bali tickets, accommodation and a bit of spending money.”
Daniella claimed the cash was from the takings of her Toorak business Aesthetica Cosmetic Clinic, since firebombed.
“Two weeks after returning to Melbourne my business got burnt down and I lost everything, so it’s not just the receipts, I lost a lot of documentation that’s very important to me and that’s just the nature of what has happened,” she said.
“Never did I think something like this would happen.”
Daniella left the court empty-handed.
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Originally published as High life of Bali murder target Sanar Ghanim before mate Zivan Radmanovic was gunned down
