Former Australia spinner Stuart MacGill is once again in the news for all the wrong reasons. The lawyer for two brothers accused of being hired in the alleged kidnapping of the former cricketer has not only denied kidnapping but has also claimed that the MacGill was a regular cocaine user.
While representing his clients in the court, the lawyer has also sensationally claimed that MacGill was “actively” involved in a drug deal central to the case. The kidnapping incident took place on April 14 last year when a group of men allegedly kidnapped Stuart MacGill in Sydney. Later, the police had arrested four people and stated that MacGill knew one of the men.
The police had also said that MacGill sustained minor injuries in the incident but didn’t require medical care. The officials had alleged that MacGill was approached and confronted in the Sydney suburb of Cremorne one evening by a 46-year-old man he knew.
Later, two other men appeared and the group forced the ex-cricketer into a car. After that, MacGill was driven to a remote site in Bringelly, on the city’s outskirts, where he was allegedly assaulted and threatened at gunpoint by the “criminal gang”.
Serious charges levelled against Stuart MacGill:
In the ongoing kidnapping case, brothers Richard and Frederick Schaaf are awaiting trial over. On Monday, the duo appeared before the Supreme Court for bail before their lawyer levelled some serious charges against Stuart MacGill.
The lawyer while arguing for his clients claimed that the ex-cricketer went willingly with a group of men to an abandoned house in southwestern Sydney. He further stated that there was no physical evidence that MacGill had been brutally assaulted.
The court also heard that MacGill allegedly introduced Marino Sotiropoulos – the brother of his partner Maria O’Meagher – to a cocaine dealer. Sotiropoulos has since been charged with supply of a large commercial quantity of a prohibited drug and will stand trial alongside the Schaaf brothers.
“The evidence implicates Mr MacGill to a high level. I’m surprised he’s not charged with the actual drug transaction that he says, in his evidence, ‘I had nothing more to do with it, I just introduced the brother-in-law, Mr Sotiropoulos, to a person who I knew used to sell drugs’,” lawyer Avni Djemal was quoted as saying by Fox Sports.
“The gentleman, now a registered source, he says that this gentleman, MacGill, was an avid user of cocaine and said to be on it all the time or drunk or desperate for money.
“He doesn’t have one physical injury after those events.
“If the hits to the front of your face have produced no lumps and you say the onslaught was to the front, the side, knocked you to the ground, how could that be?
“How could his word be that there was a kidnapping? What if he went, saw photos and got brought back?,” added the lawyer.
Stuart MacGill represented Australia between 1988 and 2008. He played 44 Tests and picked up an impressive 208 wickets.