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A County Court jury
found the married father of two guilty of one count of affray.
Another man, Mark
John McNamara, 35, of Ascot Vale, pleaded guilty to one affray
charge.
In 1996 Gangitano
employed a driver by the name of 'Santo' after he lost his license for refusing
a breath test.
Gangitano was facing
firearms and assault charges.
He also endured bail conditions which placed a
9.00pm curfew on him.
On July 16, 1996, Mathew Tomas, who a former
detective believes was Gangitano's driver, was one of three men charged with murdering a teenager who was
kicked and stomped to death in a Carlton restaurant.
Raymond Oueinati, 18, was killed in a
savage attack at the Gatto Nero restaurant in Lygon St.
Tomas went on to become the
director of Elite Cranes which is part- owned by underworld king-pin Mick Gatto.
Tomas, who was represented by
prominent underworld lawyer George Defteros
was acquitted in December 1998.
Jason Wood, a former detective who
became an MP makes several recollections regarding T(h)omas on his web-site.
"I recall in July 1996, while I
was a detective at the organised crime squad, a listening device affidavit being
prepared over several days. I recall the affidavit was near completion but still
needed to go through the rigorous tests of the special project unit."
"The target for this warrant
was Mat Thomas, who at the time was the driver for Alphonse Gangitano."
"Our intention was to install a
listening device in the car of Thomas but, because of the high standard of proof
required in the affidavit, more preparation time was required."
"On Sunday, 14 July 1996, a
week after starting to compile the affidavit, Mat Thomas drove his Mercedes Benz
to the Gatto Nero Bar. When he left, Raymond Oueinati was found dead, kicked to
death."
"Thomas was one of several
suspects and was charged with the murder, but was subsequently acquitted."
"Thomas would say he was
innocent. I say he was acquitted of murder."
"I
remember the Monday following the murder and the frustration faced by members of
the organised crime squad—knowing that, were the process for obtaining the
warrant made easier, what additional information would have been obtained and
supplied to the jury had police had a listening device installed in Thomas’s
car immediately after the death of Oueinati."
On July 27, 1996, Gangitano
threatened a bouncer at Monsoon's nightclub in St Kilda Road.
A court heard Gangitano said to the
bouncer: "Do you know who I am? You don't know what you are dealing with.
Do you know what I am worth?"
Shaping his hand into a gun and
pushing it between the bouncer's eyes, he then said, "I will shoot you.
Nobody touches me."
Early on the morning of September
7, 1996, he was at it again, this time outside the Racquet Club in Queen's Road.
On this occasion he threatened a
cop.
Looking at Senior Constable Gary
McInnes, he seethed: "Do you know who I am? Don't fuck with me. If you do,
you're dead. You think you're a tough guy? Well I'm tougher. I eat people like
you for lunch."
The court was told that after a car
accident later that morning, Gangitano punched a man and stabbed two people in
another vehicle with a pen.
He then verbally threatened police
constable Lindsay McKenzie and claimed that he had Chopper
Read under his control to do his evil bidding. (Chopper later scoffed at the
suggestion.)
On September 13, 1996, Organised
Crime Squad detectives raided Gangitano's home.
He copped a policeman's boot after
lunging for a detective's gun and, after being treated for sore ribs and a
cheekbone, was remanded in custody.
On December 6, 1996, Gangitano
pleaded guilty to 13 charges - which included making threats to kill, assault in
company, possession of a butterfly knife and resisting arrest.
During the plea hearing, forensic
psychiatrist Tim Watson-Munro said Gangitano
had trouble controlling his anger.
Bail justice Rowena Allsop then took
the stand to give evidence.
A bail justice giving a character
reference on behalf of a criminal was unheard of.
This ended two years
of speculation that the two were intimately involved.
Ganigitano and Allsop had first met
at an out of sessions court hearing and then forged a platonic relationship over
a common interest in Oscar Wilde, JFK and Napoleon.
Ms Allsop was the
subject of a 1996 investigation by the Attorney-General into her friendship with
Alphonse.
Despite her favourable words,
Gangitano was sentenced to jail.
In handing down a sixteen-month
sentence with a nine-month minimum, Magistrate Julian FitzGerald said the
character evidence was "far outweighed" by the seriousness of the
crime and Gangitano's record.
While being led away he pointed at
three Organised Crime Squad detectives and yelled, "Dogs! Fucking
germs!"
Just over one week later, a County
Court judge upheld Gangitano's appeal against the sentence and dished out a
$10,000 fine.
But Gangitano was not scot-free.
He was still on remand on charges of
intentionally and recklessly causing serious injury over the bashing of a man
outside Asteria nightclub in Fitzroy.
And he also has the Sports Bar
offences to worry about.
The Asteria king-hit victim,
Simeone Batsanis, told police that he was threatened with death and warned not
to go to court.
He claimed Gangitano told him:
"It's gonna be good if you go to my solicitor and tell him you don't know
nothing."
He told police that a friend of
Gangitano's also advised him: "You know these people, the Italians, they
gonna kill you. Don't go to the police. Don't go to court."
But when cross-examined by
Gangitano's barrister, Chris Dane, QC, Batsanis went cold on his evidence,
saying he could not remember much of what he told police.
Dane told the court that Al was no
more than a spoiled brat.
"He was the apple of his
parents' eye ...this is not the case of major criminality. He is a man who has
trouble controlling his temper."
On December 20, 1996, Gangitano
was granted bail on the charges relating to the Asteria assault, despite
prosecution claims that he was a threat to witnesses.
He was ordered to observe a 9pm to
7am curfew.
Alphonse had trouble raising the
$10,000 surety for his bail release and had to remain in custody until he did.
In March 1997 he lost his licence
for four years after being pulled over in his BMW and refusing a breath test.
And with his curfew acting as a
leash, it was proving difficult for him to earn a decent criminal wage to pay
mounting legal bills and possibly drug debts.
Lachlan
McCulloch says he believes Gangitano's ultimate demise revolved around the
extinction of major illegal gambling dens.
With no real income from illegal
gambling, according to McCulloch, Gangitano and others were forced to become
players in the drug trade.
"Al lost power when Crown
Casino came in," McCulloch says.
"That's when they increased the
penalties for illegal gambling. After Crown got its licence, he lost a lot of
work because he was being paid to protect the illegal gambling outlets, which
fell away. He, and others, had to turn to drugs and that was the beginning of
all this gangland drama."
In July 1997
Gangitano purchased a home in Glenorchard Close, Templestowe.
It has been
speculated that Gangitano and Jason Moran
had a falling out.
Moran received a
flogging and ended up in a critical condition in hospital.
While it has never been proved who
administered the beating, the suggestion is that Gangitano was the man
responsible.
 Colin
Latham (right) later told the Herald Sun he was part of a conspiracy
to eliminate Gangitano which was hatched
at a meeting
in October 1997.
Attended by a high
profile footballer, a media figure, an
underworld figure, and another man,
Latham says the meeting happened
at 6am at Virgin Mary's nightclub in
Prahran.
Mr Latham is a part owner of Players' sports
bar in Hobart and has a criminal record
including being sentenced to nine
months' jail in 1992 for assaulting a
jockey outside a Salamanca Place hotel,
and in 1998 was sentenced in Victoria to
27 months' jail (15 months suspended)
for digitally raping a woman at a party.
He had no
feelings against Gangitano although they
both wanted to take over the same
nightclub, and he knew Gangitano had
enemies.
He knew
Gangitano had been involved in standover
tactics and in one incident held a gun
to another nightclub owner's head.
"They
wanted me to take out the contract on
this man's life. They knew I had the
means to do it.
"These
people wanted this man out of the way.
"This
started the gangland wars -- this was
the first murder in the gangland
wars."
He told
the Herald Sun he accepted a
contract to kill Gangitano at the
meeting.
But Mr
Latham, who now runs a nightclub in
Hobart, would not say who offered him
the contract.
On August 18, 2007, the Herald Sun reported that
the nightclub operator had revealed he was involved in a plot
to murder Gangitano.
He said
he accepted the contract, for which he
wasn't to be paid, but he did not gun
down Gangitano.
"If
I had said no I would have left Victoria
with my tail between my legs," he
said.
"You
stand your ground."
Mr Latham
said he was 26 at the time and thought
he was "the biggest thing in
Melbourne" during his involvement
in Melbourne nightclubs over 10 years
from 1992.
Mr Latham
listed the people at the meeting to hire
him -- but named neither Jason
Moran nor Graham
Kinniburgh.
A
coronial inquiry later implicated both
men in Gangitano's death but there
remains a strong belief that others were
involved.
Mr Latham
said he had never been questioned over
Gangitano's death by police.
What
prompted him to speak out now, he said,
was his partner of 10 years was leaving
him and moving to the mainland with
their five- month-old daughter.
So he was
not concerned with any ramifications of
speaking out now.
But he
does not see his safety under threat
from speaking out or expect police to
try to charge him with conspiracy to
murder.
He said
police would not take what he said
seriously and would discredit him.
For a
long time, Mr Latham said, there had
been a contract on his life and "no
one expected me to live this long".
"Why
I am saying all this is because I want
my baby daughter to know exactly what I
am, who I am, and where I have
been," he said.
The two
most important people in his life had
been his partner and daughter.
"I
am not in fear of my life.
"I
am doing it for my kid.
"I
love her more than anything on the
planet."
In January 1998,
Gangitano and Moran were facing a preliminary hearing over the 1995 Sports Bar brawl.
Prosecutors had
feared Gangitano would interfere with witnesses to the assaults.
So in what was
believed to be a Victorian legal first, they refused to tell his lawyers the
names of witnesses.
Gangitano appeared
at the hearing on January 16 and enjoyed "a bit of a win."
He and Jason Moran
appeared briefly at the Melbourne Magistrates' Court.
The committal
mention was over by 11 a.m. and Al and Jason appeared uncomfortable in each
other's presence.
Gangitano spent the
next four hours socialising with one of his legal team before returning home.
He was said to be in
good spirits in the early evening.
The hearing was set down to continue the
following day.
That evening, Gangitano was found dead in the laundry of his Glen Orchard
Close, Templestowe house by his wife.
He had been shot
several times.
The Age reported nine months after the slaying that Gangitano had
been surprised and had run from the kitchen.
Wounded and fleeing
his assassin, Gangitano was then shot in the head as he lay on the laundry floor.
The
stand over man was visited by a friend, Graham
Kinniburgh.
Apparently Kinniburgh
left the house shortly after 11pm to buy cigarettes from a local store.
Returning about 30 minutes later, he found
Gangitano's de-facto wife with the
body of her husband, which she had just discovered.
Gangitano had a
closed circuit TV system but video tapes pertaining to the night of the murder
were lost.
It is believed a
meeting was held a few weeks prior to the murder by other Melbourne crime
figures.
Gangitano's apparent
recent capricious behaviour and the weakening of his power base was causing
concern.
Police believe it was decided at this meeting that he had to go.
It is known that Gangatino was obsessed with home security and was always very
diligent about keeping his house secure.
However, the home video surveillance
had been turned off before his murder, creating speculation that the killer was
someone close to him.
Detectives later
revealed that they were confident they new the circumstances of the shooting and
the identity of the killer.
Gangitano's death
marked the beginning of Melbourne's six-year gangland
war in which 27 lives were lost.
On January 23,
1998, Gangitano's funeral took place at St Mary's by the Sea Catholic Church in
West Melbourne.
Ava Maria was
performed by popular entertainer and friend, Simon Pantano.
John
Kizon was one of the pall-bearers.
Claims made later
in 1998 that friend, Mick
Gatto had an "inappropriate relationship" with Gangitano's
controversial bail justice Rowena Allsop were dismissed by Mr Gatto.
"She (Ms Allsop)
is a good woman," he said, "I'm sure that the people who are raising
their eyebrows are jealous they can't talk to people on different levels."
The pair were
photographed at a Melbourne kick-boxing tournament.
Ms Allsop said she
was a keen kick-boxing fan.
She denied having
socialised with Mr Gatto,
although said she had met him at least twice since Gangitano's death.
On January 9,
1999, Vince
Manella, was shot dead at his Alister St. North Fitzroy home.
Manella
was a friend of Gangitano and former employer of armed robber and former Walsh
Street suspect, Victor Peirce.
As mentioned
previously,
Manella had been one of the men found when police busted a Gangitano gambling den in
August 1987.
He came under
attention as a possible source of chemicals during the drug squads Operation
Phalanx into speed king, John
William Higgs.
Manella had been to a coffee shop in Lygon Street, Carlton before moving on to a
restaurant in Sydney Road, Brunswick.
He returned home and
a waiting gunman let fire.
Security cameras at
Manella's home were not connected.
On February 22,
1999, the Herald Sun reported that the hit on Gangitano was ordered by a
$200m cocaine cartel also linked to the killing of Mannella.
Inspector David Reid
said that Gangitano was the head of the cartel run by top members of the
business establishment.
Some of Australia's most violent criminals are involved
in the drug ring, other police said.
There were several
facts and statistics quoted in this story: "There had been a 200% increase
of cocaine coming into Melbourne since 1997, the number of cocaine dealers has
grown five fold, the Melbourne ports had become a major arrival point for
cocaine."
The existence of
such a cartel was denied by drug squad head John
McCoy.
In early 1999, a
year after Gangitano's death, a coroner found he had shot dead criminal
associate Gregory John Workman in 1995.
A charge of murder
over the shooting had been dropped after the two key witnesses retracted the
statements and went overseas.
On January 16,
2001, the third anniversary of Gangitano's shooting, the matriarch of the Moran
crime family, Judy Moran, attended Gangitano's
grave and found his headstone desecrated.
The original white cross lay
discarded nearby.
"I picked up the white cross and
took it home and told (her husband) Lewis and he was horrified," she said.
The 'Carlton Crew' was notified and
a new headstone was ordered.
On November 24,
2001, the Age reported on the impending inquest into Alphonse' death which was
to begin the following January.
The story noted that
one of the last men to see Gangitano alive, presumably Kinniburgh,
had sought legal advice about the inquiry and that another man who had recently
been released from jail, presumably Jason
Moran, and thought to be overseas, may also seek to be represented.
On January 14,
2002, the inquest into Gangitano's shooting begun.
Coroner Iain West
was expected to hear from several of Gangitano's
former henchmen, including Jason
Moran.
Moran
was paroled the previous September and had left Australia amid fears for his
life.
Jason's mother,
Judy Moran later denied her son was involved in
any way with Gangitano's murder.
"Jason worshipped Al and Al was like
my brother," she told the Sunday Herald Sun.
"None of the underworld pointed the
finger (at Jason). A witness described a tattooed bald man entering Al's house
and Jason didn't have a birthmark, let alone a tattoo."
She said she was summoned to a
meeting in Sydney and told the identity of Gangitano's killer.
"He is a small framed man with evil
eyes," she said.
Other associates
expected to contribute to the court proceedings included Graham
Kinniburgh.
In an opening address to the
inquest, Mr Jeremy Rapke, QC, assisting the coroner, identified two criminal
associates of Gangitano as suspects in his murder.
"Very considerable suspicion
attaches not only to Graham
Kinniburgh, but also to Jason
Moran in relation to the murder of Gangitano. Evidence suggests that both
Kinniburgh and
Moran were at Gangitano's house on the night of the murder," Mr Rapke said.
Graham
Kinniburgh
left blood at the murder scene
and Moran
was seen leaving the house that night by a witness.
Kinniburgh's
blood was found on a banister inside the house and his skin was found on a dent
on the front security door.
Among the
evidence pointing to Mr
Kinniburgh's
possible involvement, Mr Rapke said, were small amounts of DNA recovered from
the house after the murder.
That material
matched the DNA profile of Mr
Kinniburgh.
Jeremy Rapke said
evidence strongly suggested Mr
Kinniburgh was present during the murder but fled quickly to set up his alibi.
Mr Rapke said two
people sitting in a car saw two men leave the Gangitano house about 11:25 that
night.
One had been shown a
video line-up and picked out Jason
Moran as the man he saw.
There was
speculation that evidence at the inquest would include a police tape allegedly
featuring
Moran's
lawyer, disgraced solicitor Andrew
Fraser.
It was unknown
whether
Fraser,
in jail for cocaine importation at the time of the hearing, would be called as a
witness.
Mr Rapke said Andrew
Fraser represented Moran
when police interviewed him about the murder.
Moran
had refused to answer questions.
But in a secretly
recorded conversation on August 11, 1999,
Fraser was asked by a colleague: "Who do you reckon did Gangitano?"
"Jason,"
Fraser replied.
Mr Rapke said the conversation took
place in the context of
Fraser talking about the Moran
family.
Mr Moran
was also recorded by police making disparaging remarks about Gangitano, blaming
him for a vicious attack at the Sports Bar in 1995.
The court was also told of another
taped conversation between Jason Moran
and another lawyer in which Moran
said of Gangitano:
"He's a fucking lulu....if you
smash five pool cues and an iron bar over someone's head....you're a fucking
lulu".
The inquest heard
Gangitano spent the morning of his death at Melbourne Magistrates' Court, where
he was facing charges over the King St brawl.
Mr Rapke said
Gangitano and his co-offender, Mr Moran,
appeared somewhat distant from each other at the court hearing.
Gangitano returned
home and after 9pm and spoke to his mistress and several friends on the phone.
His de facto wife
was visiting her sister with their two daughters.
Mr Kinniburgh,
60, told police he arrived about 11pm and found his mate on the phone.
He said Gangitano,
who was found wearing underpants and a shirt, told him he was about to have a
meeting.
Kinniburgh
said he then left to buy cigarettes.
Mr Rapke said Mr Kinniburgh's
claim a meeting was about to take place was not corroborated and Gangitano's
mistress said he would never hold a meeting in his underwear.
When Mr Kinniburgh
returned, he found Gangitano's de facto in the laundry with her husband's body.
Gangitano had been
shot three times -- in the head, face and back.
In evidence, Gangitano's widow,
Virginia, said when she bumped into Kinniburgh
"about a year ago" he said to her: "I didn't do it. I don't have
anything to do with it."
Questioned by Mr Rapke, Mrs Gangitano said she had
no reason to disbelieve this claim.
The inquest also
revealed contrasting images of the killer and suspected standover man.
The court heard evidence from
Gangitano's wife and his mistress.
Both women said they did not know
how Gangitano made his money.
His lover recalled
him as a generous, kind and loyal man, while a neighbour said only two things
made him happy: money and a win at court.
A musician and
long-time friend of Gangitano was composing a song for him set to The Godfather
tune at the time of his murder, the inquest was also told on its first day.
The musician, whose
identity was suppressed at his request, played his composition about ten times
to Gangitano the night before he was killed, the coroner's court heard.
The musician had been told by
Gangitano that entertainment entrepreneur Michael Gudinski - who backed the
Chopper movie- wanted to make a film about Gangitano and his underworld
associates.
"Al said I had to make sure Andy Garcia played Al's part,"
the musician said.
The court was told
the musician had sat with Gangitano and his solicitor playing the song to check
if the lyrics were incriminating.
Under questioning
from Jeremy Rapke, QC, counsel assisting the coroner, the musician said he had
decided to dedicate a song to Gangitano "on a whim".
Asked why he had chosen the tune
from the mobster movie, The Godfather, the musician replied: "That's how I
looked upon him, as a Godfather."
The musician clarified that he did
not see Gangitano as his actual Godfather but rather that "a lot of people
respected him".
On January 14, 2002, the inquest
into Gangitano's shooting hit a wall of silence as the two prime
suspects were excused from giving evidence.
Jason Moran and Graham Kinniburgh were exempted by the coroner on the ground they might incriminate themselves.
The two men had refused to give
evidence to a Victorian coroner.
Their lawyers claimed the evidence would
incriminate them.
Legal
representatives said there was no evidence implicating the pair in the murder.
"You don't have
to be guilty to claim the privilege against self-incrimination," said Mr Kinniburgh's
lawyer, Tony Hargreaves.
The inquest heard
that a convicted killer told police he drove Mr Moran
to Templestowe on the night of the murder.
Russell Warren
Smith, who later committed suicide, told police he was afraid of Mr Moran.
"I am very scared for my own safety at the moment, as I know what Jason
Moran is capable of," he said.
In a statement
tendered to the court Smith, said Mr Moran asked that he drive him to and from Mr Gangitano's home on the night of the
murder.
Counsel assisting
the coroner, Jeremy Rapke, QC, said Mr Smith, who met Mr Moran
when the pair were in Barwon Prison, hanged himself in September 1998, five
months after making the statement.
Mr Moran
allegedly told him: "You can't come in, just wait here. I'll be back in
five or 10 minutes."
Smith told police he
waited in a car while Mr Moran went into a Templestowe house on January 16, 1998.
A man in a car had
seen a man walking purposefully to and from the home and later identified Mr Moran
in a video line-up.
According to the
statement, Mr Moran stayed at the house about 15 minutes before telling Mr Smith to drive to
Williamstown.
The pair stopped
briefly at a McDonald's store for takeaway food on the way.
When the car reached
the top of the Westgate Bridge, Mr Smith alleged, Moran
tossed what he said was an apparently unusually heavy, empty McDonald's paper
bag from the car into the Yarra River.
Mr Smith said the
bag appeared heavy as it travelled further than expected when thrown.
He said
this may have been because Mr Moran had placed something inside it.
Detective
Senior-Sergeant Charlie Bezzina, of the homicide squad, told the inquest police
divers searched the Yarra River for a week but did not find a gun, the bag or
its contents.
Two days after the
murder, according to Mr Smith's statement, Mr Moran
visited his house and warned him not to tell anyone he had driven to or from Mr
Gangitano's house.
He told him Gangitano had been "put off".
Counsel for both Mr Moran
and Mr Kinniburgh asked that their clients be excused.
Coroner Iain West allowed the pair to
exercise their right against self-incrimination.
Mr Moran's
lawyer urged the coroner not to find his client contributed to Gangitano's
death.
Chris Dane, QC, said
there was insufficient evidence to say who fired the fatal shots and
identification of Mr Moran at the scene was "gravely suspect".
Tony Hargreaves, for
Mr Kinniburgh,
said police claims his client was involved in or was present at the murder were
speculation and innuendo.
Closing the inquest
into Gangitano's death, counsel assisting Deputy State Coroner Iain West, Jeremy
Rapke, QC, said the evidence against Mr Moran
and Mr Kinniburgh was not such that Mr West could make a positive finding of contribution, but was
nevertheless "good enough" to implicate them.
Mr Rapke outlined
a police scenario in which Mr Kinniburgh
spent at least 30 minutes at Gangitano's house before Moran
arrived armed with a .32 calibre handgun after 11pm.
Gangitano tried to
flee into the laundry as Mr Moran fired at him with a small pistol, hitting him three times, Mr Rapke suggested.
In the police
scenario, Mr Kinniburgh bumped his elbow trying to flee the house and left his DNA on a screen door.
He ran upstairs to
check he had not been recorded on Gangitano's elaborate security system, leaving
his blood on an upstairs banister, and then went to a nearby service station to
set up his alibi before returning.
Immediately after
the shooting, Mr Kinniburgh rushed to a nearby convenience store, where he was filmed by a security camera
and thus acquired an alibi, Mr Rapke said.
Mr Moran,
meanwhile, left the house with Mr Smith.
Mr Rapke said there
were gaps in the evidence against Mr Moran and Mr Kinniburgh,
but said it was "good enough" to implicate them.
He conceded the
quality of the evidence meant Mr West could not "make a positive finding
that either Kinniburgh or Moran
fired the shots that killed Gangitano".
A phone call
from John
Kizon to Gangitano the night he was murdered helped implicate one of two men
suspected of the killing.
Victorian Deputy State Coroner Iain West, in delivering his findings after the
inquest into Mr Gangitano's murder, said the call showed
the
inquest into Mr Gangitano's murder, said the call showed
Graham
Kinniburgh
had been with Gangitano about the time of his death.
Mr West said a
phone call from Perth had shown Mr Kinniburgh
had been with Mr Gangitano at a time he told police he had been elsewhere.
Kizon
rang Gangitano from a Chinese restaurant in Francis Street, Northbridge,
the night he was murdered.
Kizon,
in a witness statement to the inquest, said he and Melbourne barrister Stephen
Shirrefs - who was having dinner with Mr
Kizon and Mr
Kizon's
associate Craig Christian - had spoken to Mr Kinniburgh
during the phone call.
Mr West said he
did not accept Mr Kinniburgh's
version of events and his involvement in Mr Gangitano's murder was greater than
he led police to believe.
Five days before
the presentation of findings, it was announced that a grand musical based on the
life and times of Gangitano was being produced in
Melbourne.
A Melbourne
composer, who gave evidence at the inquest into Gangitano's death, had already
recorded a lavish operatic-style song in Italian and Latin about the self-styled
Godfather.
The musician, who
asked the Coroner's Court to keep his identity secret, said he had spoken to
Gangitano the night before he was shot dead about a musical he was writing about
the Melbourne mafia and a proposed film about the criminal's life.
Gangitano asked him
to "make sure" Andy Garcia (who played Michael Corleone's nephew in Godfather
3) was hired to play the role of the Melbourne gangster in the film.
The musician said on
the night he had also repeatedly played Gangitano the recording of a song he had
written for him "out of respect".
The song – part of
the musical Burning Land – is titled Son of the Chief and
includes the lyrics "Son of the chief/I kiss the ring. In my family/You
are the Godfather".
"It was wrongly
reported that I planned to set the words to the music of The Godfather,"
said the composer this week.
"I could not do
this because of copyright problems."
The song features a
large male and female choir, massed brass, timpani, organ, string sections and
an orchestral harp.
The four-minute,
25-second epic, reminiscent of a spaghetti western soundtrack, melds elements of
Wagnerian and Verdi opera with mariachi marching themes and Neapolitan love
songs.
Other songs written
for the musical include Eye For An Eye, Mafia, Lullaby to the
Chief and Requiem For the Chief.
The planned
musical's co-producer, Duane Zigliotto, of Aussie Promotions International, said
a scriptwriter had been hired to write a narrative to link the songs.
"I know this
composer well and he is very well respected in the music community," said
Mr Zigliotto.
The composer said he
had known Gangitano – a self-styled criminal Godfather who sometimes wore a
cape, quoted Oscar Wilde and called himself a property developer – for about
18 years. They met at a nightclub in the 1980s.
Six tracks have
already been recorded in Italian and Latin for the musical. The composer is
writing another eight songs.
"These will be
special and sung in English," he said. "We will have to get a love
song in there."
The composer said
recordings of the songs were subpoenaed by the police after Gangitano's murder
outside his Templestowe home in January 1998.
"They even
hired interpreters to work out what the lyrics were about in Latin and Italian.
"However, they
have given it all back to me now, so I am ready to start working on the
show."
Mr Zigliotto said he
believed "publicity generated this week" would attract great interest
in the musical.
Few were prepared to honour
Alphonse Gangitano's memory by turning up for the findings of his inquest on
January 25.
Four years and 10 days after his
Templestowe murder, those findings pointed the finger at two of the closest of
those associates: Moran
and Kinniburgh.
Deputy coroner Iain West found that
both were in Gangitano's home at the time of his shooting.
But the coroner could not say who
pulled the trigger.
Homicide squad detectives are now
preparing a fresh report for the Office of Public Prosecutions to consider
whether there are new grounds to lay charges.
|
Alphonse
John Gangitano
In his life as a
criminal this lack of allegiances allowed Gangitano to move amongst the two main 
On April 2, 1976,
Alphonse (pictured left at age 17) appeared in Malvern Court for offensive behaviour.
On at least three
occasions Gangitano, played by Vince Colossimo (left) in Channel
Nine's 
Gangitano later had
a long and controversial relationship with divorced bail justice Rowena Allsop
(left).
In July 1991,
Gangitano fled the country just as 
Brother Wayne and former partner Patrice Lawton were to seek urgent legal
advice about getting an injunction to stop the multi-million dollar program
about Melbourne's underworld from premiering on Nine the following week.