{"id":90567,"date":"2026-09-08T01:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T01:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/90567\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T01:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T01:42:14","slug":"gunmen-jaeden-tito-and-rabii-zahabe-jailed-for-34-years-for-killing-gangland-figure-gavin-preston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/90567\/","title":{"rendered":"Gunmen Jaeden Tito and Rabii Zahabe jailed for 34 years for killing gangland figure Gavin Preston"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two men who gunned down Melbourne <\/a>gangland figure Gavin Preston have been jailed for 34 years for the callous murder.<\/p>\n

Jaeden Tito, 25, and Rabii Zahabe, 26, looked ahead and up at the court ceiling on Tuesday morning as Victorian<\/a> Supreme Court Justice Michael O\u2019Connell handed down their sentences.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Police at the scene of the shooting of Gavin Preston (right) at a Keilor cafe on September 9, 2023.\u00a0Joe Armao<\/p>\n

The pair had denied they were the masked shooters<\/a> who stormed Preston, 50, at a Keilor cafe in Melbourne\u2019s northwest on September 9, 2023.<\/p>\n

CCTV footage showed Preston and his friend Abbas Maghnie sitting outside Sweet Lulus cafe when two men dressed in black jumped out of a car and fired shots.<\/p>\n

Preston was fatally struck while Maghnie was also hit by a single bullet but survived.<\/p>\n

Police believe the attack on Preston was a planned underworld contract killing and intelligence reports suggested he had amassed a number of enemies.<\/p>\n

At trial, Tito and Zahabe argued detectives charged the wrong men and they were not the shooters.<\/p>\n

\"Rabii<\/p>\n

Rabii Zahabe and Jaeden Tito have been found guilty of murdering underworld figure Gavin Preston.\u00a0AAP<\/p>\n

But a jury in May found them guilty of murder after three days of deliberations.<\/p>\n

Justice O\u2019Connell on Tuesday described the killing as a \u201cruthless and callous disregard for human life\u201d as he sentenced the pair.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a contract killing,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe degree of planning and sophistication was of the highest order.\u201c<\/p>\n

Zahabe will be eligible for parole after 27 years, while Tito will be eligible after 26 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two men who gunned down Melbourne gangland figure Gavin Preston have been jailed for 34 years for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[260],"class_list":["post-90567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-melbourne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}