A young man who fatally fell into Sydney's Darling Harbour had been swept up in a fight on a nightclub dance floor moments earlier, a manslaughter trial has heard.
Jason Daep drowned in inner-city party precinct Cockle Bay in 2012 after a night out with friends.
On Monday, nearly two years to the day after Mr Daep's death, 24-year-old Ehab Taleb appeared in the Downing Centre District Court accused of killing him.
Crown prosecutor Lou Lungo told the jury CCTV footage showed Taleb "pursuing the deceased" along the foreshore.
But the cameras missed the moment Taleb allegedly pushed Mr Daep into the harbour, Mr Lungo said.
"The deceased was with his friends at the Pontoon Bar at Cockle Bay in the early hours of Sunday, February 12 2012, when he became involved in an altercation with another male on the dance floor," Mr Lungo told the jury.
One witness is expected to tell the trial he "saw the angry man push the Asian man, causing him to fall into the water".
This witness, Mr Lungo said, later picked a photograph of Taleb out of a line-up.
But the court heard that although Taleb pleaded guilty to affray over his role in a brawl that erupted on the promenade outside Pontoon Bar during the early hours of February 12, 2012, he denied pushing Mr Daep into the water.
"I didn't throw anyone in the water," Taleb is said to have told police in an interview.
"I was telling everyone to relax."
His barrister Robert Sutherland SC has told the court the crown case relies on "people who saw bits and pieces" and witnesses who claimed "they could see clearly from X, Y or Z distance away".
He also said there were suggestions a blond man had punched Mr Daep the night he died and that Mr Daep - who had competed in school swimming carnivals - may have drowned as a result of that punch, or because he had been drinking.
The trial continues.
