A remorseless killer who murdered his wife with an axe in front of their teenage children has been jailed for 37 years.
Dinush Kurera, 47, appeared in the Victorian Supreme Court on Thursday as Justice Amanda Fox decried his offending as “serious, brutal and terrible”.
Kurera sat stony-faced leaning back in his seat with his arms crossed as the judge detailed the murder. Sobs could be heard from the public gallery as he was jailed for a minimum of 30 years.
After a trial spanning five weeks, it took a Victorian jury just three hours to find him guilty of murdering Nelomie Perera, 43, two years ago.
The court was told Dinush Kurera continues to maintain his innocence. Picture: NewsWire / Aaron Francis
Kurera had pleaded not guilty, claiming the death was self-defence after his wife attacked him with a knife – a claim the judge slammed as fanciful and implausible.
The court was told in the weeks leading up to her death Ms Perera had been terrified of her estranged husband after telling him over the phone she wanted a divorce.
A week before her murder, Nelomie Perera told police she believed her husband would kill her. Picture: Facebook.
Just two days after Kurera returned to Melbourne from Sri Lanka on December 1, 2022, he lay in wait behind their Sandhurst home in Melbourne’s southeast for more than an hour.
He was dressed in dark-coloured clothing and carrying a petrol-filled jerry can and a hatchet purchased just hours earlier.
The court was told Kurera set on Ms Perera after she went out for a cigarette on the evening of December 3, with her screams causing their two children to run to her aid.
Kurera told them if they called the police or tried to leave he would set fire to the home and kill everyone.
She was found with 35 separate injures, while Kurera was arrested at the scene after soiling himself.
More to come