PETITION TO GOVERNOR

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2334, 24 September 1921, Page 3

PETITION TO GOVERNOR

COMMUTATION ASKED FOR

The following is the petition to be presented to His Excellency the Governor-General asking that the death sentence on Te Ivahu be commuted :

We, the undersigned, humbly petition Your Excellency to communte the sentence of death passed upon Hakaraia Te Ivahu, upon the grounds that it is probable that the said Hakaraia Te Ivahu caused the death of Richard Patrick Elliott accidentally. Your petitioners are of opinion, and verily believe, that, after i he last trial, Hakaraia Te Kahu informed the police that he shot Richard Patrick Elliott accidentally. Your petitioners urge that substantial corroboration of this was given in evidence as follows: — 1. The prisoner and the deceased were on a shooting expedition through ti-tree six or 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 he spent at “I wo-up.”.

5. The fact that the prisoner had been previously in gaol for Ilicfl was likely to influence him in believing that the police would charge him with having caused the death of the deceased, and lie would therefore seek to get rid of Ihc body.

0. It is typical of the native race that, having denied all knowledge to the police, he would persist in such denial to the last moment.

7. In undergoing three trials for murder, the prisoner has passed through an ordeal without parallel in British jurisprudence.