The lawyer for a Thai resident accused of arranging a hit on his sister-in-law in Sydney 24 years ago claims prosecutors are withholding information.
Gerard Phillip Caleo was arrested at Sydney airport at dawn on Friday after flying in from KUALA LUMPUR and later appeared in court charged over the murder of his brother Mark's wife Rita Caleo.
Mrs Caleo, 39, was fatally stabbed in her luxury Double Bay apartment in Sydney's eastern suburbs in the early hours of August 10, 1990.
Police have alleged that a live-in employee heard a noise around 1.30 that morning before discovering her boss's body.
Court documents allege Caleo solicited her murder up to a week earlier and that he assisted alleged killer Alani Afu in the hours before and after Mrs Caleo's body was found.
Caleo, who runs a restaurant in PHUKET, has been charged with soliciting to commit murder, accessory before the fact and accessory after the fact.
The 42-year-old, whose address is listed as Mosman, will apply for bail next week and did not speak during his brief court appearance at Central Local Court on Friday.
But his solicitor Sam Macedone told Magistrate Les Mabbutt that he was still waiting to be provided with the police account of Mrs Caleo's alleged murder.
"Twenty-four years is more than enough to put a set of facts together," he told the court.
"I want it recorded that they have got the information and they're withholding it."
Outside court, he described it as "a very abnormal" situation.
"They won't, and haven't told me what it is that he's supposed to have done," Mr Macedone told reporters.
"I've got to apply for bail in a matter where I've got no idea of the strength of the prosecution case because I don't even know what it is."
He said his client - who was 18 at the time of his alleged crimes - was dumbfounded by the charges.
"(He) just doesn't believe that this is happening. So, no, he's not coping that well, but he's hanging in there," Mr Macedone said.
Ten months before Mrs Caleo was killed, her brother, Dr Michael Chye, was shot dead in his Mercedes-Benz in the garage of his Woollahra home.
Mrs Caleo's death came just two days after a $50,000 reward was offered for information about the unsolved murder of her millionaire brother.