Double killer Adam Kosian has had murder convictions over shooting at a Carlton's Players on Lygon quashed Forensic police at the scene of the shootings. A MAN who gunned down two friends in a brazen daylight double killing has had his murder convictions quashed. Adam Kosian, 55, shot friends Boris Kostov, 60, and Goran Vasic, 44, because he believed they had drugged, robbed and raped him. Kosian shot Mr Vasic twice in the face after shooting Mr Kostov in the upper body and chest before placing two pig figurines on his body during the August 2010 murders. The brutal killings, at Carlton pokie house Players on Lygon, were captured on CCTV and witnessed by shocked onlookers. During a 16-day Supreme Court trial last year lawyers for Kosian argued their client, a paranoid schizophrenic, was not guilty because of a mental impairment. But the jury disagreed finding him guilty of two counts of murder. They were swayed in part by prosecutions submissions that Kosian "was of sound mind at the time of the killings." Adam Kosian was found not guilty by reason of mental impairment. He had written a will and left food for his pets at his East Brunswick flat on the day of the shootings. He had photographed himself, lit candles on his coffee table, prayed to God for forgiveness and kissed his dog before leaving his unit armed with a .32 Browning handgun. In a police interview after his arrest Kosian admitted killing the men but said he was killing two animals because they had done very bad things to him. Expert medical witnesses told Kosian's trial that he was psychotic at the time of the killings and thought he was justified in shooting his friends. He felt so morally justified, they said, that he asked shocked witnesses to call police then sat and wait for them to arrive. Boris Kostov's widow Antoaneta holds a picture of her husband. In sentencing him to 25 years' imprisonment trial judge Justice Elizabeth Curtain accepted Kosian was "in the grip of a psychotic illness." The Court of Appeal, in a judgment handed down today, agreed and quashed Kosian's convctions. Kosian launched an appeal against his convictions and sentence, arguing it was manifestly excessive. Justices Redlich, Coghlan and Dixon, found that "whilst being in the grip of powerful delusions, none of the events before or after the shooting cast doubt upon the expert opinions and the likelihood that (Kosian) did not know his conduct was wrong at the time of the shooting." Finding him not guilty by way of mental impairment the Court of Appeal ruled that Kosian's sentence, with a 20-year non parole period, was appropriate. The scene of the double shooting in Lygon St. Carlton. "A twenty-year non parole period for two execution style murders, undertaken in broad daylight and in the presence of a number of innocent witnesses, can in no way be regarded as excessive," Justice Redlich said. "The sentencing judge gave appropriate and considerable weight to the applicant's psychotic illness," he said. Police search the scene for clues following the double-killing.