Tycoon guilty of ordering execution of Scots partner
A MILLIONAIRE property developer has been found guilty of ordering the murder of a Scots businessman who was gunned down in Australia.
Ron Medich is facing a life sentence after arranging for his former business partner, Michael McGurk, to be shot dead outside his Sydney home.
Mr McGurk, 45, originally from Glasgow’s Gorbals, was killed by a single bullet to the head in front of his nine-year-old son as he got out of his Mercedes in September 2009.
The shooting happened outside the family home in the exclusive Cremorne area of Sydney as the pair were returning from running errands.
Medich, 70, had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr McGurk, a father of four, and the subsequent intimidation of his widow, Kimberley, on August 8, 2010.
But following a trial lasting more than two months at the New South Wales Supreme Court, jurors returned a guilty verdict on both charges.
Medich, who paid more than £270,000 to have the hit carried out, was led away in handcuffs and will be sentenced later.
Outside court, Mrs McGurk, who was threatened at her home following her husband’s murder, said it was a ‘great day for justice and the jury system of New South Wales’.
She added: ‘The damage to my family will never be repaired, but the result today will allow my family to move forward.
‘My children and I would like to thank everybody involved in the process from the bottom of our hearts.’
Crown prosecutor Sharon Harris told the jury Mr McGurk, who emigrated to Australia in the early 1990s, had once been involved in multi-million-dollar business partnerships with Medich, including property developments and financing.
However, by 2009 their relationship had become ‘extremely hostile’ and they were locked in expensive legal battles in the supreme and federal courts, both claiming they had been ripped off by the other and were owed millions of dollars. She said: ‘These disputes were a significant motive for the accused to direct the murder of the deceased in 2009 and then the intimidation of his wife in 2010.’
The court heard how one such feud erupted when Medich discovered that the real cost of two development sites he had given Mr McGurk £3.5million to purchase was, in fact, half that amount. Medich had developed a hatred for Mr McGurk and turned to his close friend Fortunato ‘Lucky’ Gattellari to ‘permanently resolve’ the disputes by organising his murder.
Former boxing champion Gattellari has already been jailed over his involvement and received a discounted sentence after agreeing to give evidence against his co-accused.
Gattellari said Medich had asked him to ‘put an end to all this bulls***’ and ‘find someone to kill him’. But the defence attacked Gattellari’s credibility, suggesting he was the sole organiser of the murder.
Haissam Safetli, 51, who is thought to have fired the fatal shot, is serving a seven-year sentence for his role in the murder.
His accomplice, Christopher Estephan, 27, who was present when Mr McGurk was shot, was jailed for four-and-a-half years.
Prosecutors won a court order to have Medich put on trial again after a jury was last year unable to reach a verdict.
‘Allow family to move forward’