It was supposed to be an ordinary Saturday morning in Melbourne’s leafy suburbia. Instead, two Sydney assassins in black lay in wait, armed and ready to kill.

Feared underworld bully Gavin Preston never knew what hit him. 

His mate Abbas Maghnie had a split second to see what was coming and bolted for his life. 

Preston was peppered with rounds, falling face-first onto the brick pavement where moments earlier he had hoped to enjoy a peaceful breakfast. 

There was never any doubt about the way Preston was executed in broad daylight outside Sweet Lulu’s cafe, in Melbourne’s north-west, on September 9, 2023. 

CCTV captured the whole bloody scene and there were dozens of witnesses who watched the shooting unfold. 

Preston was declared dead at the scene while Mr Maghnie spent weeks in hospital nursing a serious gunshot wound.

The only reason he had escaped death that day is because the masked gunman who targeted him was only able to fire off a single bullet. 

Gavin Preston and Abbas Maghni in the split second before and assassin starts firing. Preston didn’t know what hit him 

His gun jammed, allowing Mr Maghnie to make his escape, while the other masked gunman unloaded on Preston. 

Jaeden Tito, 25, and Rabii Zahabe, 26, were the masked men who carried out the ruthless hit and attempted murder. 

A jury found them guilty this month, with both men now staring down the barrel of life sentences in Melbourne jails where Preston made a name for himself as a feared prison overlord.  

Crown prosecutor Kristie Churchill spelled out the detailed mission to kill Preston when she gave her closing address to the Supreme Court of Victoria jury tasked with deciding their fate. 

‘On an ordinary Saturday morning, in the middle of leafy suburbia, two men would lie in wait in the car park of a local hotel. They had, before their arrival, agreed that they would kill,’ she told them. 

The court heard they arrived in a stolen Audi Q5 with false plates and blacked-out windows, dressed head-to-toe in black. 

‘Hoodies, track pants, runners, gloves, balaclavas that cover their face,’ Ms Churchill reminded the jury. 

The jury had spent weeks hearing evidence including confronting CCTV of the attack and crime scene footage of the bloody aftermath. 

Gavin Preston and his partner Lauren in happier times. Police allege one of the accused killer’s looked-up this photo after the execution 

Both assassins had been armed, the court was told, with one carrying a 9mm semi-automatic pistol.

‘They were ready. There was nothing left to do but wait,’ Ms Churchill said. 

Then came the moment of horror. 

The assassins drove the stolen Audi to the front of Sweet Lulu’s Café on Arabin Street, stopped at the outdoor dining in the middle of the road.

The two men flew out of the car, took position and fired directly at one target each, the jury heard.

‘Intending to kill,’ Ms Churchill said. 

The jury was told the Crown was positive those two assassins were the accused men, pointing them to trial evidence the prosecutor claimed proved their case. 

‘If we can establish and prove to you beyond reasonable doubt that the two shooters in Arabin Street were Mr Tito and Mr Zahabe, then we suggest that you’ll have no trouble in finding the elements proven,’ she said. 

Gunshots rang out like a bell. Cops say the shooters grabbed a ‘nine’ and Abbas Maghnie heard the shells 

One of the shells left from the nine-millimetre bullets that killed Gavin Preston 

The prosecutor painted the pair as a deadly team acting in tandem. 

‘These two shooters are acting as a team in pursuit of a common goal … It is abundantly clear from the footage that they’re acting in tandem. The goal: to execute Gavin Preston and Abbas Maghnie.’

She dismissed any suggestion that Mr Maghnie was mere collateral damage. 

‘Why was the passenger of the Audi immediately directing his gun at Mr Maghnie? … Why not point both your guns at Preston?’ she said. 

The shooting had been both clinical and merciless, the jury heard.

‘The entire shooting lasts ten seconds…They have to get out of there as soon as that mission is accomplished,’ Ms Churchill said. 

Ms Churchill walked the jury through the meticulous planning that allegedly went into the hit. 

It included stolen cars being moved into position days in advance, all with ‘heavily tinted windows and windscreens … All with false plates, clearly by design.’

Jaeden Tito in a video shown to the jury 

Rabii Zahabe claimed he wasn’t even in Victoria when Preston was gunned down 

A getaway driver was even booked under the fake username ‘Feature’ to whisk the pair back to Sydney where they both resided, the court was told.

After the gunfire, the Crown alleges the escape unfolded like a movie script gone wrong. 

At Blair Court, the Audi was torched. 

Ms Churchill described the chaotic moment in detail.

‘Mr Tito … his task, clearly to set fire to the car … You can see as he runs away from the burning Audi, the flames coming out of his left arm as he tries to pat them away,’ she said. 

The pair then allegedly moved through pre-positioned vehicles – a VW Golf and a Toyota Camry – changing clothes and dumping incriminating items along the way.

The DNA evidence, the prosecutor argued, was damning.

Detectives told the court a mixed DNA profile from the Audi’s passenger door handle was 100 billion times more likely to include Zahabe’s DNA than not. 

The court was told analysts had also found it 100 billion times more likely than not that DNA found on a balaclava belonged to Tito. 

Sweet Lulu’s cafe, in Melbourne’s north-west, was taped-off by police following the shooting 

In the Camry police found balaclavas, a glove, and a white top with burn marks to the left sleeve which all yielded DNA and gunshot residue allegedly linking both men.

‘They haven’t picked up someone else and dropped off someone else,’ Ms Churchill said. 

‘These cars were put in sequence to facilitate their return to New South Wales.’

The jury heard the Crown argued Zahabe’s post-shooting behaviour further supported the case that he was one of the gunmen. 

Seated in the back of their chauffeur-driven Q7, the jury heard suggestions Zahabe expressed relief to his alleged partner in crime. 

‘We are brothers now,’ he allegedly told Tito.

After being dropped home, Zahabe’s phone was taken off airplane mode at 8.07 pm.

‘At 8.08 – a mere 73 seconds later – a picture of Mr Preston and his fiancée, Lauren, is created on Mr Zahabe’s phone,’ Ms Churchill said. 

The jury was shown footage of Abbas Maghnie making his escape from the cafe in the moments after Preston was shot dead 

Then came searches for ‘no extradition countries’ and ‘Ayat al-Kursi’ – a verse about protection after death – followed the next day by ‘Du’a for full repentance.’

For Tito, the prosecutor pointed to a text message sent on the day Zahabe was arrested. 

‘Hey brother, it’s Jay, Rabs’s coey. You free tonight?’: slang, the Crown alleged, for ‘co-offender.’

The jury was also taken to Tito’s alleged burn injury.

CCTV appeared to show the driver’s left arm catching fire during the burning of the Audi, the Crown alleged. 

Later, footage of Tito on a holiday allegedly showed fresh burn marks in exactly the same place.

He told police it was from an ‘old bike accident.’

Ms Churchill asked the jury to dismiss that explanation. 

Rabii Zahabe arrives at the Supreme Court of Victoria on Friday 

‘He lies … He lies because he knows the truth will implicate him in the murder and attempted murder,’ she said. 

The prosecutor repeatedly urged the jury to view the evidence as ‘strands of a rope.’

‘While one piece of evidence on its own might not amount to much … it’s when you start stringing it all together, like strands of a rope, that it becomes strong,’ Ms Churchill said. 

She finished her closing address with a direct challenge to the jury. 

‘You should find that the Crown have proven beyond reasonable doubt that the two men who jumped out of the Audi Q5 on Arabin Street and fired shots at Preston and his friend, intending to kill them both, were Jaeden Tito and Rabii Zahabe,’ she said.

‘They both had murder on their minds and guns in their hands when they killed Gavin Preston and attempted to kill Mr Maghnie … the evidence proves they did it.’

Top Melbourne barrister Paul Smallwood, for Zahabe, opened his closing address by challenging the prosecution’s account of how two shooters fled the scene after the killing of Preston.

In a closing speech to the jury he repeatedly branded the prosecution case as ‘absurd’.  

Jaeden Tito arrives at the Supreme Court of Victoria on Friday 

Mr Smallwood argued the prosecution case – that both shooters were tracked from the scene all the way into a waiting Audi Q7 bound for New South Wales – was, in his words, ‘demonstrably wrong.’

The defence case turned on CCTV footage and a chance observation by a neighbour who had stepped away from her television during a break in the US Open tennis.

That witness went to her bedroom, opened her blinds, and looked out where she saw a man sitting alone in the Camry before a dark-coloured car pulled up and collected him at about 10.52 am.

Mr Smallwood described that witness as ‘by far the most important witness in this case,’ and argued the prosecution had offered no explanation for who that man was or why he could not have been one of the shooters.

He told the jury that ‘third man’ could not be explained away by the prosecution. 

Mr Smallwood further argued the Camry had taken a needlessly long and indirect route from where it began, consistent with having stopped to collect a third passenger who was not one of the shooters but needed transport to NSW.

He also claimed the chauffeur and prosecution were mistaken in identifying Zahabe as a passenger on the drive into NSW.  

The jury heard Zahabe had no prior criminal history involving violence, with the defence arguing it was inconsistent with his background to characterise him as a professional executioner.

By all accounts, Preston had his fair share of enemies, with numerous rivals wanting him dead, the jury heard. 

Preston was a man who had boasted about using sexual violence against male rivals.  

‘Gavin Preston had amassed many enemies who might have liked to see him dead,’ Ms Churchill told the jury,.

‘The police were provided with information that everyone, including Satan himself, wanted Gavin Preston dead. 

‘Whether all, some or none of that is true, clearly, police had potential other suspects.

‘We don’t dispute that Gavin Preston had amassed enemies. Upon his release from prison, he was not a popular person. 

‘But all that rumour and speculation does is establish that many people might have wanted to put a contract out on his head, to pay for somebody to pull the trigger. 

‘It doesn’t tell you who pulled the trigger, but the evidence does.’

Defence barrister Daniel Sala told the jury his client wasn’t cut for the job he was accused of doing so well. 

Abbas Maghnie (right) is seen making a run for it as the masked gunman moved in 

‘You’re sending someone who knows what they’re doing … you’re sending someone, in my argument to you, who has experience. Who can handle the kick, who can handle these weapons,’ he said.

Mr Sala emphasised the highly professional and meticulously planned nature of the offence, which involved significant organisation, multiple getaway vehicles, and access to firearms.

In contrast, he portrayed Tito as a young man who, at most, may have had some peripheral involvement in moving vehicles months earlier, but who did not fit the profile of someone entrusted with carrying out such a serious public assassination. 

‘That is the guy you get to steal the car. That is the guy you get to move the car. That is not the guy you would give a gun to for a public execution,’ Mr Sala told the jury. 

He further challenged the prosecution’s claim that Tito suffered burns while setting fire to a getaway vehicle.

Mr Sala highlighted the absence of any evidence of petrol odour, burnt skin, or pain during the long drive to Sydney.

He pointed to Tito’s explanation of the injury as an old bike accident, the lack of any recorded pain on arrest, and the fact that Tito was seen at the beach days later without apparent distress or treatment.

The defence relied heavily on medical evidence from a doctor, arguing the injury was consistent with a friction abrasion, commonly known as a carpet burn, rather than a thermal burn from petrol. 

Mr Sala stressed that fresh second-degree burns are immediately and intensely painful, making it implausible that Tito could have sat calmly in a car for hours without seeking treatment or showing distress.

He invited the jury to use their common sense when viewing holiday footage of Tito entering the water with salt and sand.

Finally, Mr Sala raised several ‘troubling’ unanswered questions about the shooting itself – how the offenders knew Preston would be at the café that morning, why he unusually sat outside, and why Mr Maghnie returned to the scene. 

He urged the jury to carefully scrutinise all the evidence and return not guilty verdicts on both charges, reminding them of the lifelong consequences of a guilty finding for a 22-year-old man. 

Tito and Zahabe will be sentenced in the coming weeks.