In prison after being arrested over the shooting death of a family friend, Alex Semaan told his fiancee he had ordered his sister to "do something about that c---sucker" who told police Mr Semaan was the shooter, a court has heard.
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Crown prosecutor Michele Williams, QC, told a Supreme Court jury that intercepted phone calls between Mr Semaan and his fiancee, Megan Beljulji, and sister Hannah Semaan when he was in custody revealed them discussing a concocted story that an unknown robber or intruder was the shooter.
Ms Williams said that after Mr Semaan's arrest, the only witness to the shooting, his cousin Tony Kannan, had been bashed by a man he believed was a friend of Mr Semaan's.
Mr Kannan, a chef, said that soon after he had been assaulted, Ms Beljulji and Ms Semaan walked in and he agreed to change his statement to police claiming Mr Semaan had been the shooter. Mr Kannan said he never intended to retract his police statement but just wanted the women to leave.
He told the jury he thought Mr Semaan had been affected by drugs when he shot family friend Michael Bekhazi at point-blank range outside Mr Semaan's bungalow, where he lived with Ms Beljulji.
Mr Kannan said he had called out to Mr Semaan when he was pointing the gun at Mr Bekhazi: "Alex, stop playing, stop joking ... something like that.
"One second, two seconds, three seconds, I am not sure, I hear [the shot fired].
"Michael said, 'Ah', and he turned like that. Straightaway I tried to help him, to hold him. I can't. So he went down on the floor."
Mr Kannan claimed that after giving his statement to police about the shooting, he was given a copy which was later stolen.
He said Hannah Semaan then came to see him, screaming at him in Arabic and saying: "How you talk like that? How you said to police that story? You know what you put inside the statement ... can put my brother in jail for life."
Mr Semaan has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Bekhazi on December 1, 2014, in Brunswick East.
Ms Beljulji and Ms Semaan have pleaded not guilty to two counts each of attempting to pervert the course of justice.
The Crown's case is that Mr Semaan cooked up a story that an unknown intruder or robber had killed Mr Bekhazi and the two women agreed to try to help him convince police Mr Semaan was not the shooter.
Following the shooting, Ms Beljulji and Ms Semaan allegedly tried to pressure Mr Kannan to change his police statement to support Mr Semaan's unknown-intruder story.
Ms Beljulji also later asked the police to return to Mr Semaan's bungalow to look for evidence of bullet holes from shots supposedly fired by the unknown intruder.
Police ballistic experts had examined the bungalow immediately after the shooting and found no bullet holes. But when they returned a second time to the bungalow at Ms Beljulji's request, they noticed a bullet hole in the ceiling and one in a painting.
The trial, before Justice Christopher Beale, continues.
