Launceston kidnapping trial jury hears closing statements

A Launceston Supreme Court jury began hearing closing statements on Monday and are expected to hand down a verdict within the coming days. 

Caine Robert Richardson, Sean Gregory Richardson, Matthew Luke Williams, Christopher John Humphreys, Malcolm Joshua Mayne and Carly Ann Dekkers have each pleaded not guilty to kidnapping Victorian man Anthony Mekhael in Launceston in 2015.

For more than three weeks, the jury has heard from witnesses including the alleged victim and two of the accused, Mr Caine Richardson and Mr Humphreys.

It has been alleged Mr Mekhael was taken at gunpoint, threatened, shot at, kicked, punched and held against his will for three days over a $75,000 drug debt. 

Crown Prosecutor Peter Sherriff argued the state’s case during his closing address on Monday. He urged the jury to reject the evidence of Mr Caine Richardson and Mr Humphreys and instead consider what Mr Mekhael told police back in 2015 – that he had been kidnapped, assaulted and had money demanded from him.

Mr Sherriff said Mr Mekhael’s statements to police “matched up” with the evidence of police officers and other witnesses, including Port Sorell residents who heard “gun shots” on the night he was allegedly fired at.

Mr Sherriff said Mr Mekhael’s injuries were “perfectly consistent” with injuries of someone who had been through such an ordeal.

“Even before he was taken to hospital and treated for his injuries, he’s described [to police] in detail what’s happened to him,” Mr Sherriff said.

Defence lawyer Greg Richardson, representing Mr Humphreys, said the state’s case was based solely on the evidence of a “junkie, Lebanese, drug dealer”. 

Describing the alleged victim as a convicted drug trafficker and liar, Mr Richardson said if the jury were to believe what Mr Mekhael said to police in 2015, “you might as well tell us you believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy”.

“Unless you are prepared to accept the truth of what that man told police … this trial is over now, it’s finished,” he said.

Mr Richardson said Mr Mekhael’s injuries were also consistent with someone who had injected ice, with the defence arguing throughout the trial that he was using drugs while in Tasmania and suffered from visual and auditory hallucinations.

“He saw people or things that weren’t there,” Mr Richardson told the jury.

Mr Richardson will continue his closing address on Tuesday followed by four remaining defence laywers.