The Auckland High Court has sentenced Christopher Salt to life imprisonment for murder, with a minimum non-parole period of 12 years.
Justice Michael Robinson recently delivered the sentence, aligning with the jury’s November verdict that rejected Salt’s claims of self-defense or manslaughter.
Court proceedings revealed the alleged motive for the killing had been communicated to Salt in Tongan.
During his trial, Salt’s defense team had argued alternatively for acquittal based on self-defense or conviction for the lesser charge of manslaughter.
Both arguments were ultimately dismissed by jurors and now by the sentencing judge.
The court was told Salt had delivered a punch to Matagi’s head inside a Mt Roskill bar before kicking his face and stomping on his head four times.
He told a jury his intent that night was initially to serve as a peacemaker.
Prosecutors called the explanation ridiculous – a clear contradiction, they said, to the high-quality, graphic CCTV footage of the attack that has been played for jurors repeatedly since Salt’s trial began last week, the New Zealand Herald reported.
The footage showed Matagi never moved again of his own accord after the final head stomp, which was recorded at 10.56pm.
It said: “While rifling through Matagi’s clothes, Salt removed his wallet, placing it in Matagi’s baseball cap along with his passport and phone before walking out of the room with the items.
“He returned about four minutes later, going through Matagi’s pockets a second time before picking up the man’s darts scattered on the floor next to him and throwing them at the board one last time”.
An ambulance wouldn’t be called for almost an hour and 40 minutes, after Matagi’s friends eventually found him and yelled to the barman for help.
“Everything happened so fast, I just wanted to disarm him,” Salt told jurors, acknowledging that he found no gun.
“I kicked him and I stomped him because I didn’t want him to shoot me,” Salt repeatedly claimed from the witness box in the High Court at Auckland over the past two days. “I was worried about the gun – nothing else.”
Salt testified he had actually suggested a game of pool because his cousin, also in the smoking area, had told him in Tongan that he was about to give Matagi a beating. He said he didn’t know what had angered his cousin, who has since died so couldn’t give evidence of his own, but he thought it best to defuse the situation.
Matangi was new to Auckland, having previously lived in Australia and Niue, when he went to Richardson’s Bar and Restaurant for the first time with two workmates on the night of August 31 last year.
He met Salt, a self-described regular at the bar, in the smoking area before footage showed the two going to the otherwise empty game room.
