A man who kicked and stomped another man to death over a pair of fake Apple earphones did not have the intention of killing the victim, his lawyer says.
Ross Houllis died in hospital from catastrophic injuries to the brain and lungs after being brutally beaten by Abdul Karaali and Sami Hamdach in February 2020.
Karaali was sentenced to 28 years’ jail with a non-parole period of 21 years after a NSW Supreme Court jury found him guilty of murder.
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Representing Karaali, barrister John Stratton SC told an appeal hearing on Friday it was not open for Justice Stephen Campbell, who presided over the original case, to find either Karaali or Hamdach intended to kill Houllis.
“Neither man was armed, neither man attempted to mask his face,” he said.Karaali is also appealing his sentence, which Stratton argued was manifestly excessive, particularly when compared to his co-offender.
Hamdach pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced to 16 years and two months with a non-parole period of just over 12 years.
“It’s a very large difference between those two sentences, between two co-offenders,” he said.
Stratton argued it was clear on the crown case that Hamdach was the instigator and director of what occurred.
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Hamdach had bought the pair of purported Apple AirPods from Houllis the day before the attack but formed the view they were not genuine.
His partner arranged for Houllis to meet and sell another pair, at which point the 28-year-old was ambushed by Hamdach and Karaali.
Stratton told the court it was conceded Karaali kicked and stomped on Houllis, with the brutal attack caught on CCTV, but said he was doing so under Hamdach’s instruction.
“It was the Crown’s case, in fact, that the co-offender, Hamdach, was the one who organised (Karaali) to be there, that it was … his anger that he believed that he’d been supplied with a fake pair of iPods (sic).”
Crown prosecutor Elizabeth Nicholson argued Karalli’s intention to kill Houllis became clear as the murder played out.
That included turn stomping on the victim’s head after he has already been motionless for several minutes.
“If the goal of the applicant was to cause grievous bodily harm, that had well and truly been achieved,” she said.
“It can only be, in the Crown’s respectful submission, that those final significant acts to the head of a person who is lying face down and unmoving were done with the intention to kill.”
A decision in the appeal has been reserved.
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