RELEASE OF MAORI CONVICTS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4187, 9 August 1892, Page 2

RELEASE OF MAORI CONVICTS.

The Native Tribal Laws, , [BY TELEGRAPH—PKEB3 ASSOCIATION^ Wellington, Tuesday,

Three Maori, convicts—Aporo Parata, To Hau Porangi and Te Ure Marahanga—who were in 1887 con demned to penal servitude for life have been released by order of Hi Excellency the Governor. The fact of the case, which are, no doubt, wel known, are briefly, that in 1887 the three men named were charged with the murder of an old Maori couple at Tologa bay, who, it was alleged by the tribe, had caused the death of a young Maori by means of makutu or witchcraft, After a solemn trial by the tribe the old couple were found guilty, and in accordance with the tribal law, condemned to death, the mother of the deceased, and the three Maoris above-mentioned being deputed to carry out the sentence. This they did, and then the Enzlieh law stepped it and in turn condemned the three men to death, the woman, however, being acquitted, In consequence of a large number ott petitions, which set forth that theL prisoners aoted only in strict accordance with the laws of their forefathers, the sentence was commuted to penal ' servitude for life, and Lord Gbgow has now, having fully considered the facts of the case, exercised the clemency of the Crown and ordered the release of the. prisoners, whose conduct during their five years'incarceration has been of a most exemplary character.