A Sydney man serving a 30-year sentence for the shooting murder of a young woman and the wounding of her husband could soon walk free after a successful appeal.
Three judges found there was reasonable doubt Mustapha Dib had not shot dead the woman, 20, and wounded AB, a potential crown witness, as they sat in a car in Sydney's southwest in November 2000.
When Mr Dib was found guilty in 2012, the court had heard he had carried out the execution-style shooting in an attempt to silence AB from giving evidence over the fatal stabbing of a schoolboy.
He was sentenced to jail until 2041, but the 33-year-old will soon leave prison following Monday's unanimous decision by the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal judges.
"The applicant is to be released," Justice Clifton Hoeben said, adding that the jury's verdict be quashed and a verdict of acquittal entered.
During the initial trial, the court heard Mr Dib, who was previously known only as "Z" as he was 17 at the time of the killing, wanted to silence AB.
Mr Dib, the jury was told, believed AB was a potential crown witness against him in the fatal stabbing of Sydney schoolboy Edward Lee in 1998.
He subsequently pleaded guilty to the October 1998 manslaughter of the teenager and was sentenced to a minimum of five years.
The original trial heard that in an attempt to prevent AB from testifying, Mr Dib ambushed him and the woman, both of whom cannot be named for legal reasons, in a Punchbowl street.
He shot at a car in which the couple were sitting, hitting the woman in the stomach and AB in the neck, the court had heard.
Acting Justice Graham Barr said at the time Mr Dib had planned and perpetrated a public execution and that he was without remorse.
During Mr Dib's trial, the jury heard that while AB was in hospital recovering from the shooting, he nominated the then 29-year-old as the gunman, using his nickname "Fairy".
However, AB later retracted this identification and repeatedly told the jury the gunman was wearing a balaclava.
This confusion about the killer's identity was crucial in Mr Dib's successful appeal bid.
"It was not open for the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that (Dib) was the person who shot (the couple)," Justice Hoeben wrote in the appeal judgment.
"The evidence has left me with a reasonable doubt on that issue and that is a doubt which the jury should also have had."
Mr Dib was initially sentenced to a minimum of 30 years and maximum of 40, meaning he was first eligible for parole in July 2041.
