Monday, July 27, 2015

Jamie Gao murder trial: Lawyer for Glen McNamara says Roger Rogerson shot student in 'cold blood'




The barrister for former police officer Glen McNamara has told a Sydney court it was fellow ex-cop Roger Rogerson who shot a 20-year-old student in "cold blood".
McNamara and Rogerson are on trial in the New South Wales Supreme Court for the murder of the University of Technology Sydney student Jamie Gao.
Yesterday the court heard from the prosecution that the two men allegedly killed Gao in a storage unit at Padstow in May 2014 over a drug deal gone sour.
The crown said CCTV cameras captured Gao entering the Rent-A-Space storage unit at 1:45pm on May 20 and 33 minutes later Rogerson and McNamara were seen dragging a silver surfboard bag from the shed and lifting it into a station wagon.
Gao's body was found floating in the sea by a fisherman off Cronulla six days later.
The body was in a silver surfboard bag which was bound in a blue tarpaulin tied with ropes.
In an opening address to the jury, defence barrister Charles Waterstreet, representing McNamara, said it was Rogerson who shot Gao twice in the shed and then threatened to kill his client.

He said McNamara's actions after Gao's death were undertaken in the shadow of that threat.


Mr Waterstreet said his client had "good cause to be afraid" and that Rogerson also threatened to kill McNamara's two daughters.
Earlier, the prosecution claimed that both men took part in planning the murder of Gao, but Mr Waterstreet told the court that McNamara "took no part in planning any murder".
The defence also said McNamara had "no idea" that Rogerson would bring a gun to the shed.
"The gun was at all time Mr Rogerson's ... from beginning to end," Mr Waterstreet told the court.
Yesterday, the court was told Gao met McNamara at a Sydney hotel and that they met on a number of occasions at a Hurstville hotel on the night and in the weeks before his death to arrange a major drug deal.
Crown prosecutor Chris Maxwell told the court Gao went to the meeting carrying 2.78 kilograms of methamphetamine, known as ice, and this package was found in McNamara's car two days after Gao's remains were found.


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