Hylton Miller, 42, believed to be a former South African, was shot by a sniper on Saturday evening on Australia’s popular Gold Coast in Queensland.
Miller, who Queensland police said had received a gunshot wound “to the body”, is in the Gold Coast Hospital. Police said Miller’s condition was “serious but stable”.
This is one of three gun crimes on Australia’s Gold Coast at the weekend, in a country that has extremely tight gun laws. Local newspapers say the Gold Coast is now “in the grip of a frightening gun crime spree” after the three shootings. None was fatal.
According to today’s Couriermail in Australia, businessman Miller had been shot at previously while living in South Africa. The newspaper states that a friend, known only as Chris, had told a local radio station that Miller “has had a lot of trouble in South Africa with crime”.
Chris is quoted as saying he and his family had walked on the Esplanade of Surfers’ Paradise with Miller and his family after playing ten-pin bowling. There had been “no altercations that night with anybody, nothing at all”.
“I just heard a crack and a few of us saw a flash to the left. I just turned around and saw a friend of mine clutching his side, running for cover,” the Couriermail quotes the man as saying.
It said earlier witnesses to the shooting had said they heard shots coming from the direction of a rooftop of a nearby high-rise building.
The newspaper did not say where in South Africa Miller had lived.
Yesterday a Gold Coast police spokesman confirmed the incident in an interview with the Cape Times, but would not confirm the identify of the man, as he said he had to “respect the family”.
“They’re going through a bad enough time,” the spokesman, who would not be named, said yesterday.
He could not confirm that the victim was a former South African citizen.
“That’s the first I’ve heard of it,” he said, adding that the former nationality of the victim would have no bearing on their investigation.
He confirmed the man had been walking along the Esplanade of the Gold Coast area of Surfers’ Paradise when he was shot at 9pm.
The shot came “from an unknown location”.
“Our information is that he was with a woman, two children, another man and woman and their baby in a pram, and a male from the UK. They had been out enjoying themselves.”
Asked what their investigation made of the shooting so far, he said: “We find the situation very bizarre.”
A thorough criminal investigation was under way.
The other two Gold Coast incidents were a drive-by shooting from a black BMW on Saturday, when a gunman shot at a vehicle, shattering the window but not injuring any of the occupants, and an unoccupied utility that was “peppered with bullets” on Sunday night.
Also, two teenage boys claimed a gunman held them up in their house, ransacked the place and fled.
“We’ve got very tight gun control, it’s extremely difficult to get a gun licence,” the police spokesman said.
He said there was no evidence of any connection between the incidents.
Gold Coast is a candidate city for the 2018 Commonwealth Games. - Cape Times