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Read the heartbreaking note from the wife of 'best dad in the world' gunned down in Bali - as mum-of-six breaks her silence after he was shot dead in a suspected gangland hit

Read the heartbreaking note from the wife of 'best dad in the world' gunned down in Bali - as mum-of-six breaks her silence after he was shot dead in a suspected gangland hit

Daily Mail​7 hours ago

The grieving widow of the Australian gunned down in a suspected gangland hit in Bali has broken her silence to reveal her heartbreak at telling her six children their 'loving dad' is dead.
Zivan 'Stipe' Radmanovic, 35, was shot dead while Sanar Ghanim, 34, was injured but survived the attack which is believed to be linked to Melbourne's underworld feuds.
Radmanovic died in front of his wife Jazmyn Gourdeas, 30, in the toilet of the rented villa where they were staying in Munggu, in the Badung Regency in Bali's south.
He had 175 Australian court appearances to his name when he died, while Ghanim also has long links to organised crime in Melbourne.
But Ms Gourdeas has now spoken out for the first time almost two weeks after the attack to reveal her family's grief, with a plea for kindness in 'this tragic time'.
'This is a tragedy,' she said in a handwritten note read out by her Balinese lawyer.
'Please be more kind, we have six children.
'My husband was a loving man and the best dad in the world - now I have the unimaginable task of going home to tell them that he's no longer here.'
She also asked for privacy while she and her family grieve the death of her husband.
Her plea comes after Daily Mail Australia revealed her sister's own links to the underworld and another gangland execution less than six months ago.
Daniella Gourdeas was linked on social media to slain Melbourne gangster Sam 'The Punisher' Abdulrahim.
She and Jazmyn's brother Dimitri had arrived in Bali with the couple to celebrate Jazmyn's 30th birthday just two days before he was shot dead.
Abdulrahim was shot dead in Melbourne in an ambush by a gangland hit squad, but had been a regular on her social media, frequently praising her photographs online.
He was brutally executed in January as he drove out of an underground car park at the Preston apartment block where he was secretly living.
Five months later, she was a key witness to her brother-in-law's execution in Bali.
Daniella told Bali Police how she woke up as the gunmen burst into Ghanim's bedroom and she heard an 'explosion'.
Daniella Gourdeas has links to slain gangster Sam 'The Punisher' Abdulrahim (pictured)
She said she then heard more gunshots and a window being smashed as the hit squad ran from room to room in the villa before she fled for her life.
'The witness [Daniella] ran out of the villa where she saw two motorcycles [or scooters] parked outside while she heard more gunshots,' added the police officer.
'[She ran to] the main road where she asked for help.'
By the time bystanders had calmed Daniella down and taken her back to the villa, police were already on the scene.
Her sister Jazmyn had also been asleep at the villa when she awoke to the sound of her husband screaming around 12.15am.
The mother-of-six cowered behind bedsheets as a man in an orange jacket and an accomplice opened fire on her husband in the bathroom, she told police.
Shortly afterwards, she heard further gunshots and then heard Ghanim screaming from a separate room after he was gunned down in his bedroom.
With her husband already dead, Ms Gourdeas tried to stem Ghanim's bleeding until emergency services arrived.
After the shooting, the suspects allegedly travelled across Indonesia in a bid to flee the country
Ghanim was discharged from hospital in a wheelchair last week, nursing a bandaged leg. Bali authorities say they have all three survivors under close watch.
Ghanim is the former partner of Danielle Stephens, the stepdaughter of notorious Australian drug trafficker Carl Williams, who was murdered in Victoria's Barwon jail in 2010.
But Ghanim's long-standing association with Melbourne's criminal underworld goes deeper than just family ties.
In 2014, he was jailed following the shooting of fellow associate Serkan Kala after a dispute at a gym escalated. He and a co-accused pleaded guilty.
On Wednesday, Bali detectives arrested three Australian men Midolmore Pasa Tupou, 37, Darcy Jenson, 27, and Mevlut Coskun, 23, after an intense five-day police manhunt.
Jenson was arrested at Jakarta Airport as he tried to get through an e-passport reader to board a flight to Singapore and then on to Cambodia.
Tupou and Coskun managed to make it to Cambodia but were identified by Interpol who arrested them in Phnom Penh and flew them back to Indonesia.
Detectives said a sledgehammer, believed to have been supplied by Coskun, was used to smash down the door of the villa moments before the alleged attack.
Badung Police Chief Arif Batubara said the discarded hammer was discovered by officers at the entrance of the villa and quickly became a key piece of evidence.
'Starting from there, we launched an investigation into the barcode on the hammer's purchase,' he told reporters during a press conference on Saturday.
Police found 17 bullet casings and 55 bullet fragments at the scene.
It comes after Bali Police revealed on Wednesday how the gang allegedly fled across Indonesia after the shooting, escaping the scene on motorbikes before switching cars twice on an 18-hour, 1200km getaway to Jakarta.
Detectives revealed the suspects were first traced through Tupou's distinctive tattoos which were first picked up on CCTV as he bought cigarettes near the villa where the attack unfolded.
The tattoos were clearly visible in pictures of Tupou as he was being pushed in a wheelchair through Jakarta Airport after he was deported back to Indonesia.
Tupou has a combination of traditional Tongan artwork inked onto his skin and the 676-international telephone dialling code for Tonga in huge numbers down his shin.
Detectives are now working with forensic experts as they pore over evidence from the crime scene, including blood samples, the sledgehammer, bullet casings and projectiles, and face coverings.
Police found 17 bullet casings and 55 bullet fragments at the scene
The crime squad is also looking at more CCTV footage, a vehicle and travel history, said a police spokesman.
The three can be held without charge for months while police investigate the killing.
Once they present their dossier of evidence, the three will be handed over to a prosecutor who will then send them to Bali's notorious Kerobokan Prison.
They will then face a court hearing to be formally charged, and kept at Kerobokan throughout their trial until a verdict and possible sentence.
They are being investigated for premeditated murder which under Indonesian law can carry the death sentence.
The Bali attack comes after exiled Melbourne tobacco overlord Kazem 'Kaz' Hamad is suspected by Australian underworld figures of ordering the hit on Abdulrahim.
Abdulrahim reportedly went into hiding in May 2024 after narrowly escaping an ambush outside his northern suburbs home, where gunmen shot at him 17 times.
In his last weeks alive, Abdulrahim was said to have become 'something of a ghost' as he moved between Melbourne, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
It's understood Abdulrahim flew into Melbourne the day before his as-yet unsolved murder.
Hamad rules his criminal empire from the Middle East with violence and extortion and underworld sources say the ruthless kingpin has the means to order an offshore hit.
Abdulrahim's dwindling allies were believed to have gone into hiding themselves after his murder.

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Antoinette Lattouf's 18-month legal saga is over – but the crisis at the heart of it still hasn't been resolved
Antoinette Lattouf's 18-month legal saga is over – but the crisis at the heart of it still hasn't been resolved

The Guardian

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  • The Guardian

Antoinette Lattouf's 18-month legal saga is over – but the crisis at the heart of it still hasn't been resolved

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The mushroom murder trial: Bizarre case of a woman accused of killing her ex-husband's relatives with beef wellington
The mushroom murder trial: Bizarre case of a woman accused of killing her ex-husband's relatives with beef wellington

The Independent

timean hour ago

  • The Independent

The mushroom murder trial: Bizarre case of a woman accused of killing her ex-husband's relatives with beef wellington

A jury is now deliberating whether a woman in Australia is guilty of murdering three people and attempting to kill another by serving them a lunch laced with poisonous mushrooms. Erin Patterson, 50, gave her estranged husband's parents and his aunt and uncle beef wellington at her home in July 2023. The next day all four guests were hospitalised with symptoms of death cap mushroom poisoning, and later three of them died. Patterson was arrested and charged with murder and attempted murder over the deaths, and is standing trial in a case that has gripped Australia and drawn international attention. Here's what you need to know about the trial. Who is Erin Patterson, and what is she accused of? Patterson is a mother-of-two from the Victorian town of Leongatha, east of Melbourne. She has been charged with murdering Don Patterson, Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson, and charged with the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson. The defendant had also been charged with three counts of attempted murder relating to her husband Simon Patterson, but those charges were dropped on Tuesday, before the trial opened. In Australia, murder carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, while attempted murder has a maximum 25-year sentence. Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. What happened at the lunch? On July 29, 2023, Patterson hosted her estranged husband's parents Don and Gail, as well as Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson and Heather's husband, church pastor Ian Wilkinson. She had invited them all for lunch at her home two weeks prior. Patterson had also invited her husband, Simon, but he declined. The pair had been separated since 2015. She served her guests beef wellington, which is a beef fillet wrapped in a mushroom paste and covered with pastry, with a side of mashed potato and green beans. The day after the lunch, all four guests fell ill and went to hospital complaining of nausea and diarrhoea. Within days, Don, Gail and Heather had died, while Ian Wilkinson survived after receiving an organ transplant. What is the prosecution case? Prosecutor Nanette Rogers opened her case at the beginning of May in Victoria's Supreme Court, and the jury heard from witnesses including Patterson's estranged husband Simon, the lone survivor Ian Wilkinson, as well as medical experts and Patterson herself. The court heard that on the way to hospital, Heather told Simon she had been puzzled by Patterson eating from a plate that looked different to those she had given her guests. "I noticed that Erin put her food on a different plate to us. Her plate had colours on it. I wondered why that was. I've puzzled about it since lunch," she said, according to the prosecution. Simon told his aunt that Patterson might have run out of plates. The prosecutor said Patterson had not eaten poisonous mushrooms, and had also not fed her children, then aged nine and 14, any leftovers from the lunch. The prosecutor said she did not need to provide a motive for the killing, and the jury could make its finding without one. "You might be wondering now why would the accused do this? What is the motive? You might still be wondering this at the end of this trial," Rogers said. "You do not have to be satisfied what the motive was or even that there was a motive." What did Patterson say in her own defence? In her testimony, Patterson admitted to foraging for mushrooms and using them in her meals. She acknowledged lying after the fatal lunch but denied knowingly serving toxic mushrooms. She described her attempts at dehydrating mushrooms as an 'experiment'. In the final moments of her cross-examination, the chief prosecutor put three key accusations to Patterson: that she deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms, knowingly included them in the beef wellington and intended to kill her guests. To all three, Patterson responded: 'Disagree.' Prosecutors alleged that she had fabricated her foraging history, calling her a 'self-confessed liar' who had no supporting evidence such as books or messages about foraging, but her lawyers maintained that she was simply a mushroom enthusiast and 'a person of good character'. Patterson's defence team has argued the poisoning was a 'terrible mistake', with her barrister Colin Mandy SC telling the jury that while the guests had been poisoned by mushrooms, it had been accidental. "The defence case is what happened was a tragedy. A terrible accident," Mandy said. Her defence conceded Patterson had lied to police when she told them she had not foraged for wild mushrooms. "She did forage for mushrooms. Just so that we make that clear, she denies that she ever deliberately sought out death cap mushrooms," Mandy said. What has the judge said? Supreme Court justice Christopher Beale, who has presided over the trial in the regional Victorian town of Morwell, instructed the jurors to discount lies Patteson admitted to telling, including about her own health. 'The issue is not whether she is in some sense responsible for the tragic consequences of the lunch, but whether the prosecution has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that she is criminally responsible,' he told the jury. 'Similarly, the fact that, on her own admission, Erin Patterson told lies and disposed of evidence must not cause you to be prejudiced against her,' he added. 'This is a court of law, not a court of morals.' The jurors have been sent out to deliberate until they can reach a unanimous verdict.

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