Three Australians Sentenced for 2025 Bali Shooting Death
A court on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali has sentenced three Australian citizens for the fatal shooting of a fellow Australian national, following claims that they were paid by an unidentified man to carry out the attack.
Mevlut Coskun, Paea I Middlemore Tupou, and Darcy Jenson were convicted in connection with the death of 32-year-old Zivan Radmanovic from Melbourne.
A second man, 34-year-old Sanar Ghanim, was also shot and beaten but survived the incident.
Coskun, aged 22, and Tupou, aged 27, received 16-year prison sentences at Denpasar District Court, while Jenson, aged 24, was sentenced to 12 years.
During the trial, Coskun and Tupou argued that the June 2025 shooting death was not intentional and occurred amid the chaos of that night.
Radmanovic had been in Bali to celebrate the birthday of his wife, Jazmyn Gourdeas, accompanied by her sister and Ghanim, who was the sister’s partner.
A coroner’s report found that Radmanovic suffered three gunshot wounds as well as blunt force trauma.
Prosecutors stated that Jenson organised the attack while Coskun and Tupou executed it.
Jenson was apprehended at Jakarta’s Soekarno Hatta airport in June as he attempted to leave Indonesia.
Coskun and Tupou were arrested in Singapore and Cambodia respectively, with assistance from Interpol.
During the trial, which began in October, the three men testified that they had been offered money to travel to Bali and intimidate Ghanim into repaying a debt.
They claimed the offer came from an Australian man whose identity they refused to disclose due to concerns for their families’ safety.
Investigators testified that the group received instructions from a "Mr X," whose identity was never determined.
The court accepted that the men acted with the expectation of "a promised payment."
Prosecutors had requested sentences of 18 years for Coskun and Tupou and 17 years for Jenson.
While the three-judge panel acknowledged the defendants caused "deep trauma" to the victims’ families, presiding judge Wayan Suarta noted that the defendants had no prior criminal records and cooperated fully throughout the investigation and trial.
"They are still young and have the chance to improve themselves in the future,"
he said, stressing that punishment "is not intended as revenge, nor to degrade their dignity, but as a preventive measure so similar acts do not occur again."
