By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
A DANDENONG man has been charged with handling a stolen $100,000 Ford Mustang days after receiving a suspended jail sentence.
Lirim Salievski, 37, applied for bail at Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on 24 August after police linked him to a Shelby Mustang recovered from a Dandenong unit’s garage on 12 May.
He and a co-accused as well as the vehicle keys were allegedly found by police inside a nearby unit at the time.
Salievski, who was unemployed at the time, was allegedly in possession of a bumbag containing instructions and tools for removing number plates from a Mustang.
Two such US-imported Mustangs were stolen during an alleged ram raid of a Springvale car seller four days earlier.
The other vehicle is yet to be found, according to a police remand summary tendered to the court.
On a mobile phone allegedly returned to Salievski in front of police was video footage of two unidentified males inside the missing Mustang as it was being driven.
Defence lawyer Huw Roberts said his client’s phone had been in the possession of another person on 28 April up to when it was seized by police on 12 May.
On 5 May, Salievski received a two year and three month jail sentence wholly suspended for three years at the County Court for false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice.
According to the summary tendered in court, Salievski had prior convictions for theft of cars, aggravated burglaries, trafficking ice, perjury, blackmail, armed robberies and weapons offences.
He had been convicted 11 times for failing to answer bail, most recently in 2008.
Magistrate Jack Vandersteen said the applicant was a heightened flight risk, given the “substantial suspended sentence on his head”.
“I wouldn’t want to be in front of a County Court judge (for offending) within seven days of a suspended sentence.”
Police informant Det Sen Const Sally Spalding raised doubts over whether Salievski had been staying with his Dandenong-based father as required under his bail conditions at the time.
He had been bailed over prohibited weapon charges, driving while suspended and failing to display P-plates in November, and also on summons for two other incidents last year.
The applicant had also been serving an eight-month community corrections order since December.
Mr Roberts said his client had shown no intention to flee and had surrendered his passport.
“By itself, it’s somewhat speculative to say he wasn’t residing at his (father’s address).”
The father had provided surety for his son’s bail in the past, Mr Roberts told the court.
Mr Vandersteen said he wanted to hear from the applicant’s father about providing a surety, as well as on the applicant’s adherence to bail conditions.
The father is expected to testify in court with the help of a Macedonian interpreter on 28 August.
Salievski was remanded in custody to appear at Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on that date.
