Gang who tried to murder businessman at casino are jailed for total of 43 years

Tony Demarco, 63, survived being shot as he left the Maybury Casino in Edinburgh in June 2008.

Imran Sakur, 35, was convicted by a jury of hatching the plot. He, along with the gunman, Jamie Robertson, 25, and the go-between, Craig Kelbie, also known as Wallace, 35, were jailed for 11 years.

The getaway driver, Francis McGlone, 39, was jailed for ten years.

Sentencing the men at the High Court in Edinburgh, Lord Kinclaven said: "Conspiracy to assault and murder is an extremely serious matter, particularly where it involves the discharge of a loaded weapon and the attempted murder of Mr Demarco in a public street."

Lord Kinclaven ordered that the men be supervised for four years at the end of their sentences.

During an earlier trial, jurors saw CCTV footage showing that Sakur, a property developer from Broughty Ferry, Tayside, had been one of the first people to go to the aid of Mr Demarco after he was shot. Minutes earlier, the men had been laughing and joking on the steps outside the casino. Sakur appeared to run to help Mr Demarco and then chase the fleeing gunman.

But the cameras had also caught Sakur with a mobile phone to his ear, giving the signal for the "hit", as soon as Mr Demarco had turned his back to walk to his car.

Sakur, Robertson, Wallace and McGlone were found guilty of conspiring to murder Mr Demarco.

Mr Demarco, of Danderhall, Midlothian, rejected suggestions in court that Sakur or a friend of Sakur, Shahid Aslam, had owed him a large sum of money, possibly 200,000, and that the debt was the motive for a plot to kill him.

Describing himself as a sandwich shop owner, Mr Demarco said: "I keep telling you there was no debt. I don't know who shot me."

Mr Demarco said he had gone to the casino to try to patch up a row between Sakur and Mr Aslam over a business deal which had gone wrong.

"I just thought I could mediate and get it sorted out amicably," he told the jury.

The men had gone outside, and the court heard that they laughed and joked before Mr Demarco walked towards his car.

"I pressed the remote control … as I went to open my car door, I heard a bang and felt a thud behind my right ear," said Mr Demarco.

An ambulance arrived and he was taken to hospital.

"I was told I had a gunshot wound at the back of my ear, and it had lodged in my cheek," he said. Doctors had told him the bullet was so close to the carotid artery and important nerves that it was too dangerous to try to remove.

Sakur was said to have wanted Mr Demarco murdered on his own behalf and also for Mr Aslam.

He approached Wallace, of Dundee, who rented a flat from him and who reputedly had contacts with "gangsters".

Wallace arranged the involvement of his sister's boyfriend, Robertson, of Paisley, Renfrewshire, who was to be paid 20,000, and McGlone, also of Paisley, joined the plot.

After the shooting, detectives studied hours of CCTV footage and saw McGlone's car driving around the area of the casino. His home was raided, and he named Robertson as the gunman in an "off the record" comment which he later tried to withdraw.

Police recovered a box of cartridges from a house where Robertson had been staying, and they matched a spent 8mm cartridge which had been found at the scene. Officers believed he had kept the ammunition in the hope of completing the contract after the first, failed attempt.