Updated ,first published
Bali: Family members of an Australian gunned down last year in a Bali villa are devastated at what their lawyer says are disgustingly light sentences handed to the two standover men convicted of his premeditated murder.
Australians Mevlut Coskun and Paea I Middlemore Tupou were each handed 16-year jail terms by a panel of Denpasar judges on Monday for killing Melbourne father of six Zivan Radmanovic in a surprise attack in the early hours of June 14.
The terms are far short of the life sentences sought by the family, and two years less than prosecutors had proposed during the trial.
Sary Latief from DNT Lawyers, representing the family, said the two men were laughing on their way back to custody following the sentencing, a claim this masthead did not witness and could not verify.
“The judges have clearly stated all the elements of premeditated murder. A life was taken. They had firearms. They went into the villa without consent. It sounded so clear they would go 18 years at a minimum,” Latief said.
“It’s a message globally [to criminals], ‘Hey, come to Bali’. I mean, we’ve had the mutilation case recently [of Ukrainian tourist Igor Komarov] that involved an underbelly-type scene. As someone who practises law here, with the increase of execution-type crimes, it really does make Bali look like it’s not a safe place to be. It’s disgusting.”
Dressed in crisp shirts and trousers for the verdicts on Monday, Coskun, 23, Tupou, 26, were led in handcuffs to the centre of the courtroom, where they leant silently towards a translator.
They were just metres from 10 members of Radmanovic’s family, who had returned to Bali on Sunday night after going home in frustration last week when the judges unexpectedly delayed the verdicts.
“I hope you get life,” one of them muttered as the pair was marched into the packed courtroom.
When the sentence was translated by Latief, Radmanovic’s widow, Jazmyn Gourdeas, buried her head into the shoulder of a family member. Others cried. None of them spoke outside court.
Last week’s adjournment was called because the panel of judges had not yet agreed on an outcome for a third man, 27-year-old Sydney plumber Darcy Jenson, who was charged with assisting premeditated murder.
He was sentenced to 12 years’ jail in a later hearing on Monday – five years less than prosecutors had sought – for organising logistics, including getaway cars, travel tickets and the hammer Tupou used to smash open the door of the villa. Jenson’s lawyers have said he was not aware of the plot.
Only half of Radmanovic’s devastated family stayed for Jenson’s sentencing.
“Dog!” one of them yelled to Jenson as he was led from the court in handcuffs.
Outside, Radmanovic’s mother-in-law, who did not provide her name, said the family had been failed.
“Bali’s a joke … you can come here and kill someone and what’s going to happen?” she said.
Radmanovic and his wife had been in Bali only a couple of days for Gourdeas’ 30th birthday, and were sharing the villa with her sister, Daniella Gourdeas, and Daniella’s partner, Sanar Ghanim – the apparent intended target of the botched attack, the court heard.
The drawn-out trial heard a mysterious figure in Australia promised the three men cash and a holiday in exchange for bashing or threatening Ghanim as a warning to pay back a debt.
In the chaos of the amateurish operation, Tupou shot Radmanovic, believing it was Ghanim, the court heard. Coskun shot Ghanim several times but did not kill him.
“We didn’t have intentions to shoot or to murder. The exact order was to warn [Ghanim] because he owed money,” Tupou told the court last year.
“As soon as I opened the door, I seen [sic] someone … and he picked something up in his hands … I walked into [Radmanovic’s] room because at that moment I thought it was Sanar. I didn’t know there were going to be two guys in there.
“As I walked in his room there were two people – there was him and someone else who was hiding in the bed. Then I made my way to the bathroom, and as I got to the bathroom, he had something still in his hand, which led me to shoot him.”
Tupou said he froze during the shooting and said, “Sanar, you need to pay”.
“He said that he was not Sanar … I was freaking out.”
Neither the two sisters nor Ghanim testified during the trial, citing safety concerns in Australia, despite requests from the judges. There had been a break-in at Jazmyn’s home in Melbourne, the family’s lawyer said. Daniella’s beauty salon had been firebombed.
One of Radmanovic’s children was in the Bali courtroom for the verdict. “He was more than my tata [dad], he was my best friend,” the boy said in a statement to this masthead last week. “We always called each other bro, and I could always count on him to be there.
“Even if I was wrong, he’d stand behind me and say I was right, then pull me aside afterwards and explain to me what I could have done better. No one will ever take his place and I miss him.”
Tupou and Coskun met for the first time in Malaysia on the orders of the Australian Mr Big, whom none of the defendants would name for their safety.
The pair travelled together to the Indonesian city of Jakarta before taking a bus more than 700 kilometres east to Surabaya, where Jenson picked them up and drove them another 400 kilometres to the tourist hub of southern Bali.
For a few days in Bali, it was a “normal holiday [for young] Australian guys: tattoos, shopping, beach,” Coskun said.
“I expected when I came to Bali, it was for maybe just punching or bashing Sanar. But I didn’t expect it to be anything this violent, this bad. When I received the [guns], I showed Tupou and we were both shocked.”
The guns were delivered to a rice paddy near the assailant’s villa. It is unknown who put them there.
At close to midnight on June 13, the gunmen hopped on scooters and went to the holidaymakers’ villa, a route they had previously scoped out, with the guns and the hammer.
“When I walked into the room – it was dark, I was nervous, shaking, I think the TV was on – I seen [sic] Sanar and [Daniella] next to him, standing behind the bed,” Coskun said in December.
“I told him, ‘I’m here to warn you about a debt that you owe’. He looked shocked … I freaked out [when I] seen him running towards the cabinet … [and] just instinct, I shot.”
Ghanim ran to the bathroom and Coskun fired more shots, the court heard.
When it was done, the two gunmen ran back to their scooters, met Jenson at a pre-arranged location in Bali and tossed the evidence.
They were all arrested within days. Jenson was picked up in Jakarta and Coskun and Tupou were detained in Singapore and Cambodia, respectively.
The lawyer for Coskun and Tupou, Ricky Rajinder Singh, said they would take the next few days to consider whether there were grounds to shorten their sentences on appeal.
“They understand they’ve committed a crime. They understand what they did deserves punishment,” he said. “But they do ask for leniency … [and] the judges sentenced them to only two years less than the prosecutors asked.”
Zach Hope is South-East Asia correspondent. He is a former reporter at the Brisbane Times.Connect via email.
Amilia Rosa is assistant Indonesia correspondent.Connect via X.
