ONGAROTO TRAGEDY

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 310, 24 September 1921, Page 10

ONGAROTO TRAGEDY

PETITION FOP COMMUTATION OF j . DEATH SENTENCE. A petition to ztho Governor-General, i praying for the commuting of the death I sentence passed on Hakaraia Te Kahu for the murder of Patrick Elliott at Ongaroto on March 27, is being circulated. It is as under:— We, the undersigned, 'humbly petition Your Excellency to commute the sentence of death passed upon Hakaraia Te Kahu, upon the grounds that it is probable that the said Hakaraia Te Kahu caused the death of Richard Patrick Elliott accidentally. Your petitioners /re' of opinion, and verily believe, that, after the last trial. Hakaraia Te Kahu informed the police that he shot Ilichard Patrick Elliott accidentally. Your petitioners urge that substantial corroboration of 'thia was given in evidence as follows:— 1. The prisoner and the deceased were on a shooting expedition through ti-tree ..six io eight feet high'. 2. The prisoner and deceased were, good friends. 3. The prisoner’s gun has a defect which makes both barrels likely to explode if one trigger is pressed. -This fact was proved by Colonel Hazard. 4. The deceased had a comparatively small amount of money on him; prisoner was earning the same wages as deceased, and is also possessed of several ■horses and landed interests, and had no urgent need for the money, which ho sprint at "two-up." 5. The fact that the prisoner had been previously in gaol for theft was likely to ■j.nhue'nce Inin in believing that the police would charge him with having caused the death of the deceased, and he would therefore seek to get rid of the body. 6. It is typical of the Native race, that, having denied all knowledge to tho police, he would persist in such denial to the last moment ' . 7. Tn undergoing three trials for murder the prisoner Tio« passed through an ordeal without parallel in. British jurisprudence. The question of whether tho conviction and sentence are valid, in view of a direction given to a jury' at Hamilton bv -Mr. Justice Stringer, is to be argued before the Court of Appeal .at 10.30 a.m. to-day.—