A wedding guest who murdered the groom just weeks after the wedding will be sentenced in February after a judge considers whether it was a robbery-gone-wrong.
Phi Ngoc Phu Le, 26, has pleaded guilty to murdering Amin Asrawe, who sustained 24 wounds inflicted with a machete and filleting knife when he was ambushed outside his Adelaide home on August 9 last year.
Prosecutor Corinna Baohm said Le owed Mr Asrawe money and the evidence suggested it was a pre-meditated murder.
But defence barrister Marie Shaw QC said Le was in fear for his life - not at the hands of Mr Asrawe - and his plan had been to rob the debt collector.
She told the Supreme Court on Wednesday that Mr Asrawe's written records showed Le owed him $22,000 but was making regular repayments and his car had been offered as security.
She contended that his motive had not been to get rid of his creditor, but to rob him.
Referring to written submissions by the defence and the crown, Justice Kevin Nicholson said the matter had become more complex and the parties would have to wait until February 3 for his sentence.
Last month, widow Dounia Asrawe told the court that she was only a wife for 46 days, noting Le had been at their wedding and visited them at their home.
"You shook my hand and smiled at me - that very hand slaughtered my husband a few days later," she said.
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