A jury has been acquitted in the trial of five co-defendants in a stabbing murder in south-west Sydney after the victim was seen with “wads of cash” on a Tinder date.
Bilal Rahim, Joseph Nehme, Viliami Taufahema, Sherene Rizk and Lisa Anne Price were facing trial in the New South Wales Supreme Court for the death of Luke Lembryk in the early morning of December 7, 2019, in the unit they shared with her mother in Condell Park.
Jurors were sent home on Friday after a High Court decision in a South Australian case, handed down two days earlier, upended the nation’s law on joint and constructive criminal ventures. murder.
“I think it is very difficult to resist a reading of (the ruling) to the effect that the combination of joint criminal enterprise extended at common law and constructive murder it has been abolished, not just in South Australia, but in all of Australia, for all intents and purposes,” Judge Richard Button wrote.
The prosecution’s case evaporates
If the trial went ahead, the sole basis on which crown prosecutors had made their case against the five co-defendants would no longer exist in Australia, the judge said.
In its decision, the High Court overturned the convictions of Ben Mitchell, Alfred Rigney, Matt Tenhoopen and Aaron Carver.
The four men had previously been found guilty of the beating murder of Albanian refugee Urim Gjabri while stealing cannabis from his Adelaide premises.
In the NSW Supreme Court case, which began on February 28, Rahim, Nehme, Taufahema and Price pleaded not guilty to charges of murderwhile Rizk fought a charge of being an accessory before the fact.
Mr. Lembryk was pronounced dead at the scene at around 2:45 am on December 7, having sustained stab wounds to the heart, arm, leg and finger.
Rahim, Nehme and Taufahema allegedly went to the unit to do “Condell Park work,” with “specific guidance” to find the residence provided over the phone by Price, who had been there previously and saw wads of cash, after initially connecting with Mr. Lembryk through Tinder.
-AAP
