After the suspicious disappearance of Goron Nikolovski in 2011, his brother was seen highly agitated in the months before Comanchero bikie Darko Janceski was gunned down, a jury has been told.
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Janceski was fatally shot by a man on a dirt bike wearing a full-face helmet, sunglasses and a balaclava outside his Berkeley home south of Sydney at around 5pm on April 14, 2012.
Matthew Paul Wiggins, 33, is standing trial in the NSW Supreme Court, charged with the murder of Janceski and causing grievous bodily harm to his father Slobodan Janceski in the attack.
Crown prosecutors allege Wiggins murdered Janceski because of his suspected involvement in his friend Nikolovski's disappearance from his Unanderra home on Halloween 2011.
Nikolovski was not a member of the Comancheros but knew the outlaw bikie gang's then national president Mark Buddle.
His body has never been found and his Honda Accord was recovered by police burnt out in Macquarie Pass south of Sydney the day after he disappeared.
On Tuesday, Nikolovski's partner Paula Geldeard gave evidence that Robert Nikolovski had been seen highly agitated after his brother vanished and had harangued her to find out what had happened.
On November 7, 2011 in an SMS discussion between Wiggins and Ms Geldeard, Robert Nikolovski was described as a "goose" and a "madass fly".
"I said to him, 'You have to f***ing calm down Rob. You know you're losing it'," she wrote to Wiggins.
"This brother-in-law of yours is killing my life," Wiggins wrote back in a later message.
While Wiggins was upset about what had happened to his friend, he wasn't excessively emotional about it, Ms Geldeard admitted under cross-examination.
"He wasn't in a state of agitation about the disappearance in the same way that Robert Nikolovski was," defence barrister David Dalton SC said.
"Correct," Ms Geldeard replied.
She told the jury she had gone out for an evening with a girlfriend on October 31. That was the last time she saw her partner with phone calls and text messages going unanswered after about 11pm that night.
Neighbours Peter and Kaye Nakaric told the jury about what they saw on the day of the shooting outside their home in Gannet Avenue in April 2012.
"There was a fight going on and I think about half a dozen shots," Mr Nakaric said.
He described seeing Slobodan Janceski, who he knew as Steve, attack the motorbike rider with a pole. In his 2012 police statement, he said Steve had tackled the rider, pushing the motorbike onto the road and had knocked his helmet off and his pistol out of his hands.
Mrs Nakaric told the jury that the pair had been wrestling on the ground and throwing punches before the rider got free and fled on what she called a very loud motorcycle.
"Steve was pretty badly bloodied by that time," she said.
Another neighbour Maria Pestana recalled seeing the motorbike speed past her place to the end of the cul de sac where she said it sped off over an adjacent reserve and out of sight.
On November 4, 2011, police put out a press release asking for information regarding Nikolovski's whereabouts. The next day, Janceski's home was burnt down in what police believed to be a deliberate act to destroy evidence.
Janceski experienced an earlier shotgun attack 2012, suffering injuries to his leg and groin at his home on January 29. Two men were charged over the incident, but were found not guilty by a jury. They were in custody at the time of the fatal shooting in April.
This is not the first time Wiggins' murder case has gone to trial in the NSW Supreme Court.
"This trial has had worse luck than others," Justice Natalie Adams told the jury.
The retrial continues Wednesday.
Australian Associated Press