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Jail for up to 16 years for Australian hitmen who killed compatriot in Bali / Photo: SONNY TUMBELAKA - AFP
Jail for up to 16 years for Australian hitmen who killed compatriot in Bali
Two Australian hitmen were sentenced to 16 years in prison Monday for shooting dead a compatriot over a debt dispute on the Indonesian resort island of Bali last year.
A third man, convicted of organising the hit on Zivan Radmanovic at a tourist villa, was jailed for 12 years by a court in Denpasar, Bali, where violent crime is rare and guns hard to come by.
Radmanovic was killed when gunmen burst into his villa in Badung last June and opened fire. A second man, 34-year-old Sanar Ghanim, was seriously injured.
Gunmen Paea-I-Middlemore Tupou, 27, and Mevlut Coskun, 23, said they had been hired to collect a debt from Ghanim, but refused to name their client.
The third man, 27-year-old Darcy Jenson, was found guilty of supplying weapons and planning the attack.
Jenson was arrested at the airport in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, while apparently trying to flee. The other two did manage to escape, but were returned to Bali from Cambodia to stand trial.
Prosecutors had sought sentences of 17 and 18 years for the men.
Judge I Wayan Suarta found Coskun and Tupou guilty of premeditated murder and illegal gun possession, and Jenson of "aiding and abetting" the crime.
Radmanovic's wife and lawyer avoided the media after the verdict and left the court without commenting.
Gun crime is rare on the island of Bali and in wider Indonesia, and the archipelago has strict laws for illegal gun possession.
E.Scozzafava--INP
