Killers sought vengeance outside Love Machine nightclub

A nightclub called Love Machine would seem the wrong target for a vengeance shooting.

Richard Arow had no reason to think he would be killed there as he chatted with security guards outside the venue alongside his partner Rebekah Spinks and other friends.

Aaron Khalid Osmani (left) and Richard Arow were shot dead outside the Love Machine nightclub in April 2019.

Arow and security guard Aaron Khalid Osmani were defenceless when Allan Fares slowly drove a stolen Porsche SUV past the Prahran nightclub at 3.15am on April 14, 2019, and Jacob Elliott, in the passenger seat, fired four shots from a semi-automatic handgun.

From a few metres away, Elliott’s shots hit both Arow, 28, and Osmani, 37, in the head, and another security guard in the shoulder. Two other patrons suffered forearm wounds. Arow and Osmani died in hospital hours later.

In April, Elliott and Fares were each found guilty of two counts of murder, two of attempted murder and one of intentionally causing serious injury.

Their Supreme Court trial heard the shootings happened hours after Elliott’s half-brother, Ali Maghnie, was ejected from Love Machine for poor behaviour. Elliott was alerted to Ali’s ejection by their father, the late crime boss Nabil Maghnie.

Jacob Elliott (left) and his late father, Nabil Maghnie.

Elliott contacted Fares, prompting the friends to leave their homes in Melbourne’s northern suburbs and travel in the Porsche to Prahran, where they drove past the Love Machine entrance four times before Elliott fired on the fifth pass.

On Wednesday, as Elliott, 21, and Fares, 25, faced a pre-sentence hearing, Arow’s loved ones told the court of their enduring pain. They noted the irony that his mother fled with five children to Melbourne in 2002 to escape violence in war-torn Sudan only to have her son murdered on the streets.

“The very thing they escaped from has happened in a place they thought was a safe haven,” Spinks’ sister, Frith Williams, said in a victim impact statement.

“More wrenching is the fact it is no civil war but a petty act of retribution against someone we never knew that claimed Richie’s life.

Allan Fares when arrested in 2019.Credit:Nine

“A kid got hauled out of a club. To say the outcome doesn’t fit the circumstance is a gross understatement.”

Spinks tearfully told the court Arow was a kind, compassionate man of integrity, an “angel” to his mother and a talented soccer player who dreamt of becoming a firefighter and wanted to help his South Sudanese community.

Spinks said she continued to relive the horror of seeing her partner fall in front of her, had lost joy in her life and the killers’ “gutless” actions meant she was unable to walk along busy streets, out of fear she would be shot at.

“It has left an imprint on my soul,” she said.

A police officer photographs evidence outside the Love Machine nightclub after the shootings.Credit:Chris Hopkins

“My world has become very small because of fear. I simply don’t feel safe in my city any more.”

Semisi Tu’itufu, the security guard shot in the shoulder, said he felt he didn’t do enough to help his friends and was haunted by their deaths and the sight of Spinks cradling Arow.

“I try to forget, but I have to live with my friends losing their lives in front of me for the rest of my life,” Tu’itufu said. He no longer works in security.

There were no victim impact statements read for Osmani, who also came to Australia as a refugee – from Afghanistan – and was previously remembered for his love of his family and the gym.

Rebekah Spinks speaks with the media in 2019.Credit:Simon Schluter

At trial, Elliott argued he didn’t intend to hurt anyone and meant to fire shots in the air, having been ordered by his father to fire warning shots in retaliation for Ali’s ejection. Elliott claimed he feared being bashed by his father if he disobeyed the order.

Moussa Hamka, 28, was found guilty at trial of assisting an offender for hiding Elliott’s gun after the shooting.

Moussa Hamka.Credit:Facebook

Nabil Maghnie, 44, was shot dead in January 2020 in Epping. No one has been charged over his death.

Prosecutor Patrick Bourke, QC, said it was open to Justice Andrew Tinney to jail Elliott and Fares for life, as their crimes were in the most serious category of murders.

Bourke said the premeditated shooting was a “grossly violent act” in a busy street, against people who had no knowledge of what was to happen. He said the jury’s verdicts showed there was an intention to kill out of retribution.

“They executed, or attempted to execute, complete strangers for the purpose of sending that message,” Bourke said.

The trio’s lawyers will address the judge on Thursday.

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