Oz grandmother set up execution of brother-in-law

AN Australian underworld matriarch has been found guilty of orchestrating an execution-style murder of her brother-in-law at a busy suburban cafe.

Judy Moran, a 66-year-old grandmother, was convicted over the slaying of Des “Tuppence” Moran who died from multiple gunshot wounds to the head in Melbourne in June 2009, in a case police described as too far-fetched for television.

Shot at noon at close range by two balaclava-wearing gunmen, the former underworld enforcer was from a family that played a key role in a deadly years-long gang war for control of the city’s drugs trade.

Judy Moran had already lost two husbands and two sons in the gang war, which claimed about 30 lives after it began in the 1990s and was dramatised in the hit Australian series “Underbelly”, likened to US show “The Sopranos”.

Dressed in black with her lips painted bright red, Moran clasped a tissue between her hands and bowed her head as the jury delivered the verdict.

Moran plotted with gunman Geoffrey Armour to kill her 61-year-old brother-in-law and she drove the getaway car to and from the murder scene.

Prosecutors said her plan was motivated by an ongoing financial dispute she had with her brother-in-law, who she believed was swindling her out of millions of dollars from business dealings involving her late husband Lewis.