Two men twice convicted of the fatal shooting of Dragan Sekuljica inside Splashes Nightclub almost 13 years ago have been sensationally acquitted of murder by the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal after a bench of three judges found the prosecution's star witnesses were inherently unreliable.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Zlatan Popovic and Tevi Koloamatangi had their 2017 convictions overturned earlier this month, ending an eight year court case that has seen several dramatic and unexpected turns.
The pair, along with co-accused Dalibor Bubanja and Jason Hristovski, were arrested in 2012 and each man charged with murder via the legal principal of joint criminal enterprise.
It was alleged Popovic organised the brazen killing, Hristovski supplied the gun, Koloamatangi was the trigger man and Bubanja acted as a lookout.
The Crown case against the pair centred on an alleged falling out between Mr Sekuljica and the Bubanja family prior to the shooting.
Previous courts have heard Mr Sekuljica, a father of two, was shot as he left the nightclub to get into a taxi across the road just after 3am on Septembewr 8, 2007.
Wounded, he ran back into the club and collapsed near the bar.
He was chased by the gunman who fired further shots, one at close range to the back of his head.
A security guard was also shot in the arm but survived his wounds.
Popovic, Koloamatangi, Hristovski and Bubanja were each found guilty of murder after a joint trial in the NSW Supreme Court in May 2014.
All four were sentenced to substantial prison terms.
However, the Court of Criminal Appeal overturned the men's convictions just 18 months later.
Kristovski and Bubanja were acquitted, while Popovic and Koloamatangi had their convictions overturned and a retrial was ordered.
A subsequent trial with the two men took place in September 2017 and they were again found guilty of murder by a second jury.
Koloamatangi was sentenced to life behind bars in November that year, while Popovic was was jailed for 34 years, with a non-parole period of 26 years.
The pair appealed their findings of guilt a second time in late 2019 and earlier this month had their convictions quashed.
Lawyers for both men successfully argued that the evidence of the two star prosecution witnesses - a getaway driver who was given immunity from prosecution in exchange for his evidence; and a convicted criminal and serial liar who claimed both Popovic and Koloamatangi had made unsolicited confessions to him - was so unreliable that a jury shouldn't, and couldn't, have accepted it as truthful.
On that basis, justices Tom Bathurst, Andrew Bell and Derek Price found the jury made a mistake in finding the two men guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
While Popovic and Koloamatangi's sentences and convictions have been wiped, the Mercury understands both remain in custody on unrelated charges.