Contract killer Stephen John Asling, who murdered Melbourne gangland figure Graham “The Munster” Kinniburgh on the orders of Carl Williams, has been sentenced life in prison with a minimum term of 27 years.

Mr Kinniburgh, 62, was gunned down by Asling, 56, as he got out of his car in the driveway of his home in Kew, in Melbourne’s east, 13 years ago.

It was one of the last unsolved murders committed during the more-than-decade-long underground drug war in which more than 30 people were killed.

Asling carried out the hit with Terrence Blewitt under drug kingpin Williams’ instruction.

Both of those men are now dead.

Williams was murdered in prison in 2010, while Blewitt disappeared in suspicious circumstances just a year after Kinniburgh’s murder.

His remains were found at a vacant block in Melbourne last year.

The Supreme Court was told Asling and Blewitt had initially been contracted to kill a Williams rival, crime patriarch Lewis Moran.

But after trying to kill Moran for several months without success, Williams told the men to instead target Kinniburgh, who was one of his close associates.

The pair had lain in wait for the gangland figure to return home on the night he was murdered.

— ABC