The " Gang " Murder Scene !

 The " gang murder " business is alive and well in Sydney, but a trial presently in progress shows how the risk factor has increased in this electronic age.  The Supreme Court is hearing the prosecution of Fredon Laith Botrus who is accused of stabbing to death Alfredo Isho as  he sat in a barbers chair getting a haircut.

The evidence of how this murder proceeded sounded like the script for a movie.   In his opening address the prosecutor revealed that on the morning of the murder Mr Botrus received a text message on his phone that simply stated in Arabic, followed by an emoji of a man getting a haircut. " Yo brother. There's a dog at the hairdresser ".

Later, CCTV footage shows Mr Botrus leave the home he shares with his parents and siblings on a mini motorbike and heads towards that barber shop. He is wearing black pants, a blue hooded jumper and is wearing a face mask, and he was wearing an  O'Neal brand motorcycle helmet.  At 12.31 he entered through the rear door of the barber shop and demanded a haircut.

The barber told him to come by the front door, and moments later he again entered by the back door and stabbed Mr Isho near his right collar bone as he sat beneath a protective cape in the barber chair. He had been carrying a knife concealed in his sleeve and immediately after the stabbing he left the barber shop and fled on the mini bike.

It seems Mr Isho was unaware that he had been stabbed.  He walked outside the hairdresser's shop and made a phone call, but the wound had punctured a lung and severed an artery and he soon collapsed.  He died the next day in Liverpool hospital.

The time factor following this stabbing is illustrative.  The stabbing occurred just after 12.31 and at 12.42 Mr Botrus was home in his garage, disassembling the motorbike. He used pedal fans to cool the hot engine and shortly after two men arrived in a white Holden to take away both the murder weapon and distinctive parts of the motorcycle.

Later that afternoon Mr Botrus was stopped when in a car driven by his father and his phone was seized.  Police also obtained that blue hooded jumper and blood on it matched that of Mr Isho.  Mr Botrus has pleaded  not guilty.

It has become fairly obvious that gang murders are now part of the crime scene.   War between bikie gangs is now carried out openly on the streets and even the lesser gangs combine victim intelligence with a coordinated scenario of support to hide evidence and avoid guilt, but the ever widening of electronic componentry is giving the police an edge.

The use of firearms increases annually and this is where the public are most at risk.  Such killings often involve an ambush and a spray of bullets can involve innocent people.  In this case the weapon used was a knife, but it is a sobering thought that the need to have a regular haircut can involve the unwary in a murder scene in this age of drugs and the gangs that profit from drug activities !