Lucky escape for shooting victim who loved casino

As he enjoyed his regular poker game, Tony Demarco was oblivious to the plot being hatched to gun him down

TONY Demarco was a regular at Edinburgh's Maybury Casino, but it is unlikely he has ever been as lucky as he was on the night of 3 June, 2008.

It was nearly midnight as the 63-year-old businessman walked across to his silver Mercedes following his regular game of poker, having decided to head to another casino to try his luck.

As he gambled inside with friends, he was oblivious to the maroon Peugeot which had been driven repeatedly back and forward past the art deco building by Francis McGlone.

Seated beside McGlone was Jamie Robertson, clad in a black hooded top and baseball cap. In his hand, he clutched a replica pistol which had been converted to fire live rounds.

Nervously, the pair waited for a mobile phone call from the man who had hired them to gun down Mr Demarco, to give the final green light to proceed.

Across the street, Imran Sakur had stood beside Mr Demarco outside the casino as the pair enjoyed their cigarettes, laughing and joking before bidding him farewell.

CCTV footage from the casino showed Sakur with his mobile phone to his ear as soon as his intended victim turned his back.

At 11:50pm, Robertson emerged from the darkness after receiving the go-ahead and approached Mr Demarco from behind, firing once into the back of his head before fleeing.

Mr Demarco later told the court that he "heard a bang and felt a thud behind my ear", which left him staggering to the pavement and clutching the bloody wound.

Sakur – who ordered the hit amid allegations that he owed Demarco large sums of money – pretended to give chase to the gunman.

As Sakur maintained his charade of innocence, Robertson and McGlone sped away, unaware that their victim was alive after the bullet bounced off his skull and lodged in his cheek.

A chair was brought from the casino for Mr Demarco to sit down on, as others applied compresses to the wound while awaiting the arrival of an ambulance.

Meanwhile, witnesses reported seeing McGlone and Robertson's getaway car speeding at up to 80mph in the direction of Edinburgh Airport following the shooting before one of the men got out of the vehicle to make another phone call, perhaps believing that the job was done.

During the days leading up to the shooting, Sakur's messages had relayed the murder plot through go-between Craig Kelbie, 35, in an attempt to seal himself off from suspicion. Between 30 May and 4 June, records showed that 35 calls or texts had been exchanged between the two men.

Kelbie had been a tenant of Sakur who, engulfed by debts, needed someone with "gangland" connections to carry out a contract on the unwitting victim.

Workmates McGlone and Robertson were chosen for the task, with the men looking forward to a 20,000 pay day for their efforts.

In the weeks after the shooting, detectives said that the motive would be "crucial" in finding the culprits as rumours swirled that Mr Demarco was the victim of a gangland hit or a case or mistaken identity.

The investigators who set up "Operation Muster" to catch the would-be killer were left with two vital pieces of evidence.

A trawl through hours of security camera film showed McGlone's car driving around the casino area in a suspicious way, and officers were able to identify the number plate.

After a dawn raid on his Paisley home, McGlone claimed he had been at home on the night of the shooting, but a call to his mobile phone from his then fiance helped destroy his alibi.

Police raided another Paisley house where Robertson had been staying and found a box of cartridges hidden in the loft. They matched an 8mm shell case found at the Maybury and four were missing from the box of 50.

Mobile phone records linked Robertson first to Kelbie – Robertson's girlfriend's brother – and then to Sakur, Kelbie's landlord.

Detectives confronted Sakur with a tip-off they had received that Mr Demarco had a price of 20,000 put on his head by an "Asian man from Dundee".

The bounty was, however, later dropped to 10,000 because the victim survived and eventually part-paid in vodka rather than cash.

"That is not me. I don't owe him a penny. Ask him yourself," replied Sakur.

All four men were found guilty of conspiracy to murder and attempted murder – by majority in the case of Sakur and McGlone, and unanimously for Robertson and Kelbie.

Mr Demarco, who told the court "I don't know who shot me", still has the bullet lodged in his face, a grim reminder of how close he came to death.

IN THE LINE OF FIRE

THE FIXER

CRAIG KELBIE was recruited to arrange the casino hit by Sakur while renting a house from him in Arbroath. The unemployed father-of-three approached his sister's boyfriend, Jamie Robertson, to target the victim then acted as a go-between to keep Sakur distanced from the intended crime. Kelbie's girlfriend, Vicky Buchanan, later told the court that they took their children for a family holiday in the wake of the shooting, where they stayed at Sakur's villa. The trial heard that Sakur believed that 35-year-old Kelbie knew "gangsters". Sakur insisted they had only a "landlord-tenant" relationship, but the pair exchanged 21 calls or texts by mobile phone onthe night of the shooting.

GETAWAY DRIVER

FRANCIS MCGLONE was hired to drive his workmate Jamie Robertson to carry out the shooting. The 39-year-old, from Paisley, had evidence given against him in court by his then fiance, Lynda Kiernan, 42, who overheard him discussing his part in the plot. She said McGlone told her son about being promised 10,000 for "somebody getting done in or shot". Security camera film recovered by police showed McGlone's car driving around the casino area in a suspicious way. After a dawn raid on his home three weeks later, McGlone named Robertson as the gunman in an "off the record" chat with detectives – comment she later tried to withdraw.

THE HITMAN

JAMIE ROBERTSON was found guilty of shooting Mr Demarco despite claiming in court that a man known only as "Kev" pulled the trigger. The 25-year-old bodybuilder claimed Kelbie, his girlfriend's brother, had paid him 500 to drive "Kev" to the casino but he had "freaked" after his passenger pulled out a gun. However, a box of cartridges –matching a spent shell found outside the casino – was found in the attic of Robertson's sister's house. Prosecutors said Robertson, from Paisley, had visited Mr Demarco's home the week before the shooting in a failed assassination bid. The bricklayer was working on the Olympic Village in London when he was detained by police.

THE VICTIM

TONY DEMARCO told the High Court in Edinburgh he had no clue why he was gunned down outside the Maybury Casino, or who was responsible. The 63-year-old has been a business partner of Vincent Delicato – who in a separate venture owns the Leather and Lace chain of city sex shops – and served as a director of at least three companies. He lives in a fenced compound in Toscana Court in Danderhall, Midlothian. The gates outside bear the words "Casa fi Famiglia", which translates as "family home". Acasino regular known to friends as "Italian Tony", Mr Demarco was described in court as a sandwich shop owner.