THE NIGHT A TOP RUGBY PLAYER WAS SHOT EIGHT TIMES AT POINT-BLANK RANGE AT THE SPIT — AND SURVIVED
ONE of the Gold Coast’s most bizarre and unsolved crimes unfolded on a cold Friday night at The Spit in June 2006.
Pita William Wilson, a former top-flight rugby player in New Zealand, miraculously survived without serious injury eight gunshot wounds from close range. The bullets from a 9mm pistol failed to hit any major organs.
A court later heard Wilson had spent the day before the shooting travelling around the Gold Coast wearing a bulletproof vest.
He removed it just hours before being shot because he was hot.
At 9.15pm on Friday, June 9, 2006, Gold Coast police were called to reports of a shooting near the Seaway Kiosk. When they arrived, Wilson was lying by the side of SeaWorld Drive.
He had wounds to his abdomen, upper right chest and hands, and had a bullet graze on his arm.
On his way to hospital, a detective accompanied him in the ambulance to get his statement.
Police alleged the shooter was Yassar Bakir, a well-known and feared bikie at the time who had been a member of the “Finks terror team”.
Police launched a largescale manhunt for those involved in the shooting, allegedly sparked by a quantity of missing drugs.
Less than two days later a man was arrested. Police alleged he had picked Wilson up from Chevron Island and taken him to the meeting in a secluded location near the Seaway instead of the prearranged location at Fisherman’s Wharf.
“There had been a prearranged meeting to be held in a public place and (the man) drove Wilson to The Spit,’’ Acting Detective Inspector Nev Huth said.
“An altercation took place and Wilson was shot several times.’’
Bakir was arrested at the Surfers Paradise office of his then lawyer Robin Tampoe four days after the shooting.
As members of the Finks Motorcycle Club circled the Gold Coast Hospital at Southport where Wilson remained guarded by police, what is believed to be the longest bail application in the city’s history unfolded at Southport Courthouse.
Across nearly eight hours, Mr Tampoe attempted to argue for Bakir’s release.
But it failed to convince Magistrate Ron Kilner who, after a marathon sitting, refused bail, saying Bakir was at risk of fleeing to Dubai after police had played a tape in court of Bakir telling a friend he planned to move to the Middle East in three months to start a business.
Immediately after he was refused bail Bakir lashed out from
the prisoner’s dock and sacked Mr Tampoe.
Bakir pleaded with Mr Kilner to grant him bail now that he was representing himself so that he could build his case. ‘‘I need to see witnesses and get statements … I can’t do that while I’m in custody,’’ he said.
The man who allegedly drove Wilson to the meeting was acquitted in 2008 of attempted murder while Bakir, who pleaded not guilty to the same charge, was committed to trial for the shooting.
After recovering in hospital, Wilson returned to New Zealand before the first trial and at one point – despite being told to keep a low-profile by police out of fear of recrimination given he was the key prosecution witness – he popped into
the newspaper office of Queenstown paper Mountain Scene for a relaxed chat.
At the time, much to police incredulity, he allowed the newspaper staff to photograph him but declined to give an interview.
Back in the Brisbane Supreme Court, the case against Bakir proceeded but fell apart suddenly when Wilson didn’t appear in court, forcing police to drop the charges.
Prosecutor Glen Cash asked for the indictment against Bakir be nullified and the charges of attempted murder be dropped.
It came after the Crown spent the two weeks searching for Wilson who was due to fly from New Zealand to Brisbane.
In the 12 years since he
didn’t appear in court in the case against Bakir, the former first-class rugby player, cage fighter and security guard has continued to have legal troubles in his homeland. In February this year he appeared in Christchurch District Court via video link charged with a laundry list of offences including unlawful possession of a firearm, a pump-action shotgun, and unlawful possession of six shotgun cartridges. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Bakir, who eventually ceased his Finks membership, also continued to face legal issues and was jailed in 2010 for importing a commercial quantity of the drug fantasy. While in prison at Woodford Correctional Centre in 2013 he again came to prominence when he was put into a 23hour-a-day lockdown and was on the verge of being sent to the Newman government’s controversial proposed bikies-only jail in the aftermath of the Broadbeach brawl.
His lawyers won an injunction against his transfer, with Supreme Court Judge Peter Applegarth blasting the decision of a prison’s boss to make the “safety order” against Bakir simply because police had “ticked a box” on a form saying he was still a Fink, though he had long since left the club.
Bakir was released from jail and has since kept a low profile.