A former bikie boss charged with weapons offences after being shot in a firefight cannot be acquitted on the basis of self-defence, a judge has ruled.
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Former Canberra Comanchero commander Peter Zdravkovic, 38, is on trial in the ACT Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to possessing a rifle and knuckledusters without authorisation on June 30, 2018.
Police officers have told the court they found the items during a search of Mr Zdravkovic's property that day, less than 48 hours after four masked intruders had stormed the Calwell premises.
Mr Zdravkovic, naked after a shower, lost the top of one of his fingers in a shootout with the attackers, who fled after setting three of his cars alight.
The lead-up to the June 2018 attack, including Mr Zdravkovic's departure from the Comancheros and various associated threats, has been detailed during three days worth of evidence presented to the trial jury.
The threats circulating in relation to the former gang leader included that a "hit squad" would come to his house.
Mr Zdravkovic has also claimed a bullet grazed his head in an earlier incident involving disguised men at his home in March 2018.
But Justice David Mossop ruled on Wednesday afternoon that Mr Zdravkovic's barrister, Jason Moffett, could not ask the jury to find the 38-year-old not guilty of the weapons charges on the grounds that it was reasonable to possess them in self-defence.
The ruling was revealed to the jury during closing submissions in the case on Thursday.
Crown prosecutor Patrick Dixon told jurors "the only rational conclusion" was for Mr Zdravkovic to be found guilty on both counts.
He pointed out that shortly after the shootout, Mr Zdravkovic admitted to Senior Constable Damien Clark that he had shot at his assailants.
Mr Dixon said the former bikie boss had then refused to tell Senior Constable Clark where he had put the gun he had used, in a conscious decision to keep possession of the weapon.
The court has heard a different officer ultimately found a Sako .270 bolt action rifle in a roof cavity in the laundry of Mr Zdravkovic's home.
Police also found bladed knuckledusters in Mr Zdravkovic's shed, Mr Dixon said, and the "inescapable" conclusion was that they were there because the 38-year-old had put them there.
The prosecutor reminded the jury of forensic analysis showing that DNA found on both weapons was extremely likely to belong to Mr Zdravkovic.
"[The weapons] weren't just existing in a vacuum," Mr Dixon said.
"They were there because [Mr Zdravkovic] had them there.
"He would've continued to have these items if the police didn't find them."
But Mr Moffett argued that Mr Zdravkovic should be acquitted, telling jurors that until police seized the rifle and knuckledusters on June 30, 2018, no one had possessed either item that day.
He said CCTV of the attack two days prior to the seizures clearly showed Mr Zdravkovic firing the rifle "in the clothes he was wearing when he was born".
Mr Moffett even told the jury that "the only plausible explanation" for the gun being in the roof space was that Mr Zdravkovic had put it there.
But he said Mr Zdravkovic had left his home, which was quickly declared a crime scene, shortly after the June 2018 attack to receive treatment for his hand injury.
Mr Zdravkovic returned only once before police took the weapons and went to the patio area, but not into the house or shed where the weapons were found.
"He could not have been in possession of those things [immediately before police took them]," Mr Moffett told jurors.
The jury retired on Thursday afternoon to consider its verdicts.
