Murder For Hire Charge Dropped Against Former AC/DC Drummer

One day after prosecutors filed a murder-for-hire charge against Phil Rudd, a former AC/DC drummer, they dropped it. New Zealand police had charged him with trying to hire a hit man’s services to kill two people.

However, although the more serious charge has been dropped, Rudd, 60, is still facing two other charges: possession of cannabis and methamphetamine and threatening to kill a complainant.

New Zealand’s legal system, which is founded on English law, is extremely murky. No details about the allegedly crimes were released and no explanation regarding why the attempted murder charge was made and then dropped.

When the Crown Solicitor (or prosecutor) got the case, he noted there was not enough evidence to support the charge and dropped it.

Jan Fulstow, a Crown spokeswoman, said the issue is for the police, who do not need to come to the Crown to ask for permission for charges. They make the decision themselves on what charges to bring based on evidence they have. With these kinds of issues, the Crown Solicitor will be responsible for prosecution.

She said the Crown looked at the charges and decided to drop the attempting to procure murder charge but leave the others standing.

Rudd’s attorney Mabey said the Crown Solicitor looked over the police file and noted what evidence was available to support the dropped charge. He said he based his view on that there wasn’t enough evidence to justify the charge, and for that reason, he withdrew the charge.

He said Rudd would defend the Threatening to Kill charge, and that the other charges that relate to personal drug possession are minor.

Mabey said the Attempt to Procure Murder should have never been brought forth. He said Rudd suffered unnecessary and incalculable damage to his public image due to the multiple reports of the allegation where there was no justification for it.

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Posted by News on Nov 7 2014. Filed under Entertainment, New. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.