On the night a man allegedly murdered his Sydney flatmate during a drunken argument he called the victim's sister, saying "if anything happens to your brother don't blame me".
Gongchen Chen, 23, was found lying in a large pool of blood in the lounge room of his Auburn flat in Sydney's west in the early hours of February 4 last year.
His flatmate and accused murderer Chang Jie Wang was nowhere to be seen. He boarded a flight to Perth before later being extradited back to NSW.
He has pleaded not guilty on the basis of self-defence.
On the opening day of his Supreme Court trial on Monday, crown prosecutor Giles Tabuteau said Wang had been going out with Chen's sister Elva before their relationship ended in November 2013.
She had asked Wang to move out of the apartment but he hadn't.
On the night of the alleged murder, Wang and Mr Chen invited four people over for dinner at the flat.
All of them became affected by alcohol in varying degrees after playing a drinking game.
An argument then broke out between the pair that escalated into a physical confrontation with pushing and shoving.
Wang, Mr Tabuteau said, was seen as the more aggressive of the two men.
At around 12.19am on February 4 Wang rang Elva who was in China and asked: "Do you miss me?"
"She replied 'No, I'm coming back with my husband. I don't miss you'," Mr Tabuteau said.
Shortly after Wang allegedly called again, this time saying "If anything happens to your brother don't blame me".
Within twenty minutes a triple-zero call was made saying a man was "bleeding a lot" and there had been some fighting.
One of the guests told police the argument seemed to be about Wang feeling guilty about Elva.
But Wang's barrister John Stratton SC said his client had been acting in self-defence.
"We say he ran out of that flat because he was terrified. He is in shock ... he saw someone who was a friend of his ... dying in front of his eyes," Mr Stratton told the jury.
In one telephone call made to Elva after his arrest, Mr Stratton said Wang told her "If I did not fight back, the one to die that night would have been me".
The trial continues.
