Former NSW policemen Roger Rogerson and Glen McNamara engineered a fake drug deal in order to steal almost 3kg of ice and make their supplier vanish, the crown says.
Crown prosecutor Chris Maxwell QC finished his three-day closing submissions on Monday, wrapping up the crown's evidence in an almost four-month murder trial.
He urged the jury to convict both Rogerson and McNamara of the shooting murder of 20-year-old university student Jamie Gao in a Padstow storage unit on May 20, 2014.
Both have pleaded not guilty of killing Mr Gao, stealing 2.7kg of ice from him and dumping his body in the ocean near Cronulla.
Mr Maxwell said it didn't matter who fired the two fatal shots because they had been planning the murder together since sometime after January 2014, convincing Mr Gao to meet them for a major drug deal.
News that makes sense
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
Instead they ripped off the ice and tried to make Mr Gao vanish, he said.
"The only way for this to be achieved was by killing him and getting rid of him in a way that would mean he could never be found - like on the bottom of the sea," he said.
Mr Maxwell presented 29 pieces of evidence that he said amounted to a circumstantial case against the pair.
This included a lack of notes to support McNamara's claim he had been meeting with Mr Gao to write a book; that both McNamara and Rogerson took items that were used to wrap up Mr Gao's body to the storage unit the day of the murder; and gunshot residue on Rogerson's clothing.
"The crown presents this case in the way I have outlined and having considered the evidence carefully as I'm confident you will, it would be, in the crown's submission, your solemn obligation to return a verdict of guilty in relation to both counts against both accused."
Both face charges of murder and supplying a commercial quantity of drugs, while Rogerson is facing a third, alternate charge of being an accessory after the fact.
Rogerson's barrister, George Thomas, began his closing submissions by saying it would be easy for the jury to draw "an erroneous conclusion" from the circumstantial evidence.
"The crown wants you to conclude certain circumstances from the evidence," he said.
"They are but some of the conclusions that can be drawn from circumstances."
He reminded them that Rogerson is innocent until proven guilty, and that they must believe the crown case beyond reasonable doubt in order to convict him.
"Anything less is not good enough," he said.
