Four-year delay in justice for victim

A bikie named as an associate of one of the Ibrahim brothers, Sam Ibrahim, and a suspected drug dealer have been identified as the key suspects in an Australia Day killing of a young father in a road-rage attack.

But the bikie, Paul Younan, 28, and the alleged drug dealer have not been questioned in detail about the killing of Queenslander Omega Ruston, 32, despite police being aware of the pair's alleged involvement for more than four years.

Fairfax Media has found the official investigation into Mr Ruston's death in January 2009 on the Gold Coast stalled after Queensland's Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) waited two years to re-summons the pair to attend a coercive hearing about the killing.

And the investigation was potentially compromised after Younan, while in Long Bay jail, was sent a secret Australian Crime Commission document identifying him and the suspected drug dealer as the main suspects.

Mr Ruston, a father of two, was killed in a road-rage incident while returning home from an Australia Day celebration at a park with his extended family on the Gold Coast.

The construction worker had just started a family and was looking forward to opening a restaurant. He loved fishing, physical activity and, according to a statement from his parents, he ''left behind a partner, a son and a daughter and is missed dearly by all of his family''.

Mr Ruston had been driving with two friends about 10.25pm when his vehicle was allegedly cut off by a small, red car on the Gold Coast Highway near Burleigh Heads, prompting a verbal exchange.

Witnesses allege Mr Ruston pulled over on the side of the road and the red car stopped behind his vehicle. When Mr Ruston got out of the car, the red vehicle drove alongside and a man sitting in the back fired two shots at Mr Ruston, according to witnesses. The bullets hit him in the stomach, killing him.

About two months after the shooting, Queensland police successfully called for the state's Crime and Misconduct Commission to hold coercive hearings to question five individuals suspected of involvement, including Younan. Three of the individuals appeared before the CMC but Younan and the fifth man, the suspected drug dealer, have never appeared in any coercive hearings despite the killing occurring four years ago.

Police sources have previously said Sam Ibrahim has been an associate of Younan, giving Younan membership of the bikie gang the Nomads after Mr Ibrahim became president of the Parramatta chapter in 1997.

Mr Ibrahim is one of four brothers including John, a Kings Cross nightclub identity featured in the Underbelly television series, Fadi, who was shot five times in his Lamborghini outside his Castle Cove home in 2009, and Michael, who was acquitted of charges of conspiring to murder a man wrongly suspected of shooting Fadi.

About a week after Mr Ruston's death the suspected drug dealer went overseas but returned in November 2010 and has since been charged in NSW with serious drug offences, meaning he cannot be named.

Younan was arrested and locked up on unrelated charges in NSW, which involved the alleged kidnapping of a plumber, Stephen Toy, who was snatched from near a car park near the Granville Red Rooster restaurant. Mr Toy was alleged to have been bashed and stabbed, tied to a chair, beaten with a plank of wood and threatened with his thumbs and toes being cut off and sent to his mother.

But in 2010, the kidnapping and other charges against Younan were dropped and the NSW government paid him his legal costs of approximately $20,000 for wrongful arrest.

Towards the end of 2011 Younan and the other man were re-summonsed to the coercive hearings by the CMC.

The pair deny any involvement in the Ruston killing and their lawyers have been fighting the new summons in the Queensland courts. They have sought a judicial review arguing their clients' rights would be infringed by having to appear in a hearing where they could not avoid answering questions about a crime where they are the chief suspects.

The legal actions have also revealed that Younan is alleged to have accidentally received a secret Australian Crime Commission document while he was in Long Bay Jail. The document was part of a brief served on him for an unrelated matter. Headed ''protected'' and addressed to a NSW Police State Crime Command intelligence manager, the document listed Younan and another man as the chief suspects in the case. It alleged Younan was raising money to flee the country.

Younan's lawyers allege the document supports their argument that their clients were the key suspects. His lawyer Dennis Miralis said his client's case was of public importance because it dealt with legislation that ''potentially abrogates the right to a fair trial and removes the privilege against self-incrimination''.

The CMC has declined to comment directly on the summonsing delay. Last week the ACC said it had been unaware that Younan had the document. ACC chief executive officer John Lawler said the ACC was working to find out how it happened.

A spokeswoman said NSW Police ''is unable to find any record of the document having been provided to an external party''.