Killing of Syeid Alam

Syeid Alam, a 33-year-old man living in Allenstown, Queensland, was reported missing by his wife on 5 April 2016 after he failed to return from a fishing trip near Sydney Gully in the Rockhampton suburb of Park Avenue. His car was found abandoned nearby two days later. On 16 April 2016, a Queensland State Emergency Service volunteer discovered his headless body in the gully; his head, wrapped in jeans, was found nearby. Additional property belonging to Alam was later recovered downstream near a boat ramp in Berserker. Alam's funeral was held on 20 April 2016. At the time of his death, he was a father of two, with his wife pregnant with a third child. The family had lived in Rockhampton for about four years after emigrating from Burma.

Queensland Police treated the death as suspicious from the outset and appealed for public information, while dismissing media speculation that a crocodile had been involved. In May 2016, police established a crime scene at a property in Berserker as part of the investigation, including the use of dog squads.

Later in May 2016, Mohammed Khan, a 34-year-old man from Berserker who had worked alongside Alam as a halal slaughterman at the Teys Australia meat processing facility in Lakes Creek, was arrested and charged with murder and interfering with a corpse. Both men were members of Rockhampton's Rohingya community, and police credited that community with assisting investigators in overcoming language barriers. Khan was remanded in custody and later denied bail by the Brisbane Supreme Court in April 2017. He maintained he was not responsible for Alam's death.

At a committal hearing in December 2018, police alleged that Khan slit Alam's throat and then severed his head with a tomahawk between 7pm and 8pm on 5 April 2016. Khan pleaded not guilty and was ordered to stand trial. The trial, delayed multiple times, began in the Rockhampton Supreme Court in January 2020 and, after an adjournment over interpreter availability, resumed in February 2020. Prosecutors argued the alleged motive stemmed from Khan learning that Alam's brother had had an affair with Khan's wife. The defence argued there was insufficient scientific evidence connecting Khan to the killing. On 13 February 2020, a jury found Khan guilty of murder, and Justice Graeme Crow sentenced him to life imprisonment, describing the beheading as "truly horrendous."

On 6 November 2020, the Queensland Court of Appeal quashed Khan's murder conviction, finding the jury had been misdirected and that CCTV evidence was insufficient to establish culpability. The court ordered that a verdict of acquittal be entered in place of the conviction.