BALCOMBE MURDER CONSPIRACY THEORY:
Hague lawyer suggests alternative theory
LAWYERS for accused Market Square murderer Karl Hague have asked a witness if he was part of a conspiracy that led to the fatal stabbing of Ricky Balcombe 23 years ago.
Tolga Savas denied allegations put to him at Mr Hague’s Supreme Court murder trial yesterday that he and his friend, “Asian Johnny”, knew the murder was going to happen, and helped the killer dispose of his jacket and hat before running from the scene.
Mr Hague’s lawyer Felicity Gerry, QC, asked Mr Savas if he knew that a man called Shane Wild asked Asian Johnny – real name Phong – to have Ricky Balcombe’s friend Nick Munn bashed. Munn was the leader of a street gang called The MSC, that also included Balcombe and fellow teens Paul Bellia and Stephen Cramer.
Balcombe was stabbed to death while walking with Mr Bellia near the shopping centre lifts about 3.20pm on May 5, 1995.
The prosecution allege Mr Hague killed him in revenge for an attack on a car by The MSC a fortnight earlier.
But Ms Gerry aired an alternative murder theory yesterday, asking if Ricky Balcombe’s death was collateral damage in an intended attack on Mr Munn.
She asked Mr Savas if he “knew perfectly well that someone was going to be stabbed in that corridor on that day”, and if he expected it was going to be Mr Munn.
She also asked Mr Savas if the killer gave him a jacket as he fled from Market Square.
He answered no to all three questions.
Mr Cramer yesterday told court Balcombe died two days after Mr Munn bashed a “fat kid” known as “Dough Boy” in an old warehouse 1km away. Mr Wild was that victim, the court heard.
Mr Cramer and Mr Bellia have been asked at the trial if they knew Mr Wild publicly boasted on the night of Balcombe’s murder “that will teach them to f--- with me”.
Nick Munn and Asian Johnny are yet to give evidence at the trial, but Mr Savas and Mr Cramer were among seven witnesses yesterday.
“I don’t know who Shane Wild is,” Mr Savas said.
The witness told the jury he and Asian Johnny were in the Little Malop St mall nursing Asian Johnny’s small child about 3.20pm on the day of the murder when they saw Mr Bellia, frightened, run out of the exit near the lifts, followed a short-time later by a man, who was shaking and holding a bloody knife.
While Asian Johnny approached the man, Mr Savas was about 10m away, holding the child.
Confronted, the man dropped the knife and ran to- wards Yarra St, Mr Savas said.
The witness said he handed the baby over to other friends, and he and Asian Johnny ran to the lights at the intersection of Yarra and Little Malop streets, but the person had gone.
Evidence from another witness read to the court yesterday, alleged a “chubby woman” with a baby pushed her way to the front of the crowd that soon gathered around Balcombe as he died in the shopping centre.
“Did you send her in to report back to you what was going on?,” Ms Gerry asked Mr Savas. But the man said no, and said he did not know what the lawyer was talking about.
The trial continues.