02:27
Reportage
One of two men accused of the bashing murder of a woman drug dealer claimed yesterday that he had been shocked and scared when his co-accused suddenly started beating the 41-year-old victim.
Samir Hishmeh was giving evidence in the Supreme Court where he and co-accused Rohan Tait Johnston both deny murdering Christine Van Dongen in her Mt Nasura home on January 3 last year.
The court has previously been told the men deny they inflicted fatal injuries or planned to endanger her life, with each of them giving separate accounts of what happened to a shared acquaintance.
Yesterday, Mr Hishmeh took the witness stand and claimed he simply believed he was helping recover a debt at the home and was shocked when he saw Mr Johnston strike Ms Van Dongen, try to choke her and then use cable ties to bind her hands.
"Everything just escalated . . . it was not like I expected at all," Mr Hishmeh said.
He said he had ordered a witness - who had been smoking drugs in the house when the men arrived - to lie on the floor so that he would not get involved.
He said he had told Mr Johnston to use the "proper hold" as he tried to choke Ms Van Dongen as a way to get him to stop.
"At the time I was thinking to myself he was really hurting this woman," Mr Hishmeh said.
"By me just saying 'stop' I don't think he would have."
Mr Hishmeh said the only time he laid a hand on Ms Van Dongen was to place her into a partial recovery position and also check her pulse, during which he got blood on his hands.
Asked by his lawyer Colin Lovitt why he had not stopped the assault or gone to the police, Mr Hishmeh said he had been too frightened because he believed a third man linked to the home invasion had been connected to bikies.
"I was just intimidated," Mr Hishmeh told the jury. "It's something I have to live with for the rest of my life . . . if I had intervened would she have died?" He said he also feared police would not believe his story.
The prosecution has alleged that the two accused men were trying to rob Ms Van Dongen of cash and drugs and that she was attacked with a claw-hammer and had her face pushed through glass during the attack.
Mr Hishmeh said he had not known Ms Van Dongen was a drug dealer.
The jury has not heard evidence from Mr Johnston. The trial continues.
