FIGHT IN FREMANTLE

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 233, 29 June 1944, Page 4

FIGHT IN FREMANTLE

Two Maori Soldiers Killed, Others Injured EVIDENCE AT INQUEST (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Received June 28, 7.45 p.m.) PERTH, June 27. An inquest was held into the deaths of two Maori soldiers, Reginald Hooper, aged'26, and Ned Rako Kelly, aged 21, who died iu hospital following an altercation in a hotel in Fremantle on April 11. Three other Maoris as well as two Americans were sent to hospital. Twenty-three witnesses were called. Andrew Stitt, a soldier of the Australian Imperial Forces, said he saw four or live Maoris in the hotel aiming blows at an American. He saw the American’s hand rise and fall and heard a Maori cry out that, he had been stabbed. Con. Anastas, a shopkeeper, said that outside the hotel he saw a number of Maoris trying to wrest a knife from an Allied soldier. One Maori staggered away stabbed. He saw a second Maori bleeding from a wound in his left side, and an Allied soldier with his shirt torn to the waist. A second Allied soldier was lying on the footpath. The coroner, Mr. H. J. Griig, found that Hooper had been killed in self-de-fence by an American soldier whose identity had not been fully established. He also found that Harold Hicks t a United States soldier, who stabbed Kelly also acted in self-defence.