A Supreme Court jury has found four men guilty of murdering an Albanian refugee at a drug-growing house in Adelaide.
Benjamin John Mitchell, 33, Alfred Claude Rigney, 44, Matt Bernhard Tenhoopen, 25, and Aaron Donald Carver, 37, stood trial charged with the murder of Urim Gjabri in October 2018.
After about 26 hours of deliberations over four days, the jury of 10 women and two men handed down its verdict on Thursday afternoon.
Tenhoopen, who smiled as entered the court, looked stunned as he learned his fate, then nodded and waved to a woman as he was taken to the cells.
Mitchell, Rigney and Carver did not react to the decision.
Justice David Lovell remanded the men in custody and will sentence them at a later date.
Mr Gjabri was found dead in a Carousel Street home at Para Vista, north of the Adelaide CBD, which had doubled as a grow house.
During the six-week trial, jurors heard that Mr Gjabri was hiding out at the house in an effort to avoid immigration authorities.
They heard that the home was raided and robbed late at night, and Mr Gjabri was attacked.
Prosecutors said it was likely he lived for some time after suffering a head wound, which would eventually prove fatal.
Blood splashed on top of the loose cannabis, which was left strewn, showed he had been moving around the house.
His body was found three days after the assault.
The drugs were packed into garbage bags and then placed in the back of Mr Gjabri’s car, which was driven a few kilometres away to Gilbert Street, Ingle Farm, where they were transferred to another car.
Neighbours reported hearing men swearing at each other and shouting as they tried to load the cannabis into the vehicle.
Carver, Mitchell and Tenhoopen left South Australia for Queensland in the days after the incident.
In a phone call recorded between Carver and an associate, he answered “yep” when questioned “was he dead?”
A cigarette butt from the scene was forensically linked to Carver, while his DNA was also found on a knife inside the house and Mitchell’s on a set of secateurs
During the trial, jurors were also shown a video filmed by Tenhoopen’s girlfriend, which showed him hand-stripping cannabis plants.
In his defence closing, Bill Boucaut QC, for Carver, raised the possibility of a mysterious syndicate, which he said could have been responsible for the murder after the men had robbed the house.
But Tim Preston, for the prosecution, said in his address there was little chance that some other group had targeted Mr Gjabri.
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