A Tongan man in Australia, Tevi Koloamatangi (47), has been found guilty of murder in relation to the shooting of a man outside a nightclub in the city of Wollongong in 2007. A Serbian man, Zlatan Popovic (45), was also found guilty of hiring Tevi as a hitman to conduct the shooting. The pair are expected to be sentenced sometime in October.

According to prosecutors, the victim Dragan Sekuljica (29) was a close friend of Zlatan, but the friendship became sour as a result of family feuding within the Serbian community. Following these events, Zlatan planned to kill Dragan and hired Tevi to carryout the shooting.

Tevi and Zlatan were initially convicted of murder in 2014 and Tevi was sentenced to life imprisonment, but they successfully appealed for a re-trial in 2016. Prosecutors alleged that Zlatan organized the hit which took place on September 8, 2007.

Prosecutors told the jury that Tevi shot Dragan with a revolver as he was leaving a nightclub to get into a taxi after 3am. Dragan ran back into the club and collapsed near the bar, he was chased by Tevi who continued to fire shots at Dragan including one shot to the back of Dragan’s head. Security cameras outside the nightclub captured Tevi fleeing the nightclub with his face covered.

According to the Australian Police Journal, Tevi immigrated to Australia at the age of 10. He was a drug addict and displayed a penchant for violence with a string of charges including serious assaults and drug possessions.

At the time of Dragan’s murder, Zlatan was on parole for manslaughter in relation to a shooting in 1999. In that incident, Zlatan shot a man Vedran Ravanjak – who also happened to be a former friend.