Ian Lloyd, QC, made the argument in the Supreme Court on Thursday as he sought release on bail for one of the accused killers, former Kings Cross detective Glen McNamara.

Mr McNamara, 63, and his former colleague Roger Rogerson, 73, are accused of murdering student Jamie Gao, 20, in a storage unit in south-west Sydney in March, by firing two shots into his chest from close range.

Mr Gao's body was found floating in the ocean off Cronulla Beach three days later.

On Thursday, Crown Prosecutor Chris Maxwell, QC, played edited CCTV footage showing the former policemen loading Mr Gao's plastic-covered body into one of their cars.

Mr Maxwell said the Crown had a strong case that the duo had planned and carried out the murder and that Mr McNamara was at risk of fleeing the jurisdiction because he knew he was facing life in prison.

But Mr Lloyd said there were "other possible explanations" for the death of Mr Gao, and the accused must have known they were on camera.

"If these two experienced police [officers] were planning to rip and kill, it would be a pretty foolish way to go about it – in clear sight of CCTV, which they couldn't have missed," he said.

"My friend says it was planned. Well, if it was planned, it was planned extremely badly; it was Keystone Cops."

Mr Lloyd also questioned why his client would have left 2.8 kilograms of the drug "ice", which he is accused of stealing from Mr Gao, in his car for a number of days for police to discover.

He revealed that, when Mr Gao's body was examined, forensic pathologists found a blood alcohol level of .037.

Apparently alluding to a self-defence argument, Mr Lloyd said the alcohol level could help to explain "why he may have acted in a way he normally wouldn't have".

He said Mr Gao was wearing a single latex glove when his body was found and that this could have been an attempt to protect his hand from gunshot residue.

Mr McNamara and his family have raised $740,000 in sureties, in the form of cash and equity, in a bid to have him released on bail.

But Mr Maxwell said there were some cases where "no amount of conditions can mitigate the unacceptable risks".

The primary risk was that, facing the possibility of spending the rest of his life in jail, Mr McNamara would try to flee.

"Here is a man who faces the very real prospect in this case of being convicted of two crimes which carry life imprisonment – they are high stakes," Mr Maxwell said.

Justice Ian Harrison will hand down his decision on the bail application on November 26.