The man who pulled the trigger during a fatal drive-by shooting outside a Melbourne nightclub has been found guilty of murder, along with the getaway driver, while a third man has been found guilty of helping to hide evidence.
Jurors in the trial of Jacob Elliott, 21, Allan Fares, 24, and Moussa Hamka, 28, took more than five days to come to a unanimous verdict over the 2019 shooting outside Prahran's Love Machine nightclub.
Security guard Aaron Osmani and patron Richard Arow were killed, while three others were injured, after Elliott opened fire on the club from a stolen Porsche driven by Fares.
Prosecutors told the court the pair were ordered to go to Love Machine by Elliott's late father, underworld crime figure Nabil Maghnie, who was angered that another of his sons, Ali Maghnie, had been kicked out of the venue by security.
Elliott fired four shots into the crowd outside the nightclub. Mr Osmani and Mr Arow were shot in the head, while three others were hit in the upper body.
Today a Supreme Court jury found Elliott and Fares guilty of two counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder and one count of intentionally causing serious injury.
Security footage tendered in evidence showed the black Porsche approaching the club on Little Chapel Street, before gunshots and loud tyre screeching were heard as the car sped away from the scene.
Lawyers claim gunman's 'very violent' father ordered shooting
During closing statements, defence lawyer Julie Condon argued Elliott was terrified of his father, a man with a violent past who had access to illegal weapons.
She said Elliott had reluctantly agreed to go to the club to exact retribution, but only intended on firing warning shots.
"He [Elliott] wants to bend over backwards to avoid conflict with a man that Victoria Police flagged as being very violent with a short fuse. They appreciated what a potentially dangerous person Nabil Maghnie was — imagine that's your dad," Ms Condon said.
"Nabil Maghnie was not the sort of person you say no to."
Ms Condon argued the jury should find Elliott guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter.
Prosecutor Patrick Bourke disagreed, saying Elliott had circled the club four times before the shooting, and was seeking Nabil Maghnie's approval by carrying out his orders.
"What happened outside the Love Machine nightclub was no cock-up. It went exactly the way it was intended to," he said.
"All you have to do is drive past, let off a few straight up into the air. You don't need five passes to do that."
Fares's lawyer, Campbell Thomson, said the shooting was a plan that "went horribly wrong".
"It's one thing to agree to a plan to shoot a gun into the air. It's something else to agree to kill people for no good reason at all," he said.
The third man, Moussa Hamka, was also found guilty of hiding the gun used in the shooting.
The trio will be sentenced at a later date.
Nabil Maghnie, an underworld figure, was killed in a daytime shooting on a suburban street in Melbourne's north in 2020.
He had previously survived an earlier assassination attempt when he was shot in 2016.
