Tongan Gang Leader Lasalosi Vaitohi is accused of having ordered and co-ordinated the ambush of a South Auckland rugby league stalwart in Otahuhu, Auckland.
Peter Rasmussen, 75, was fatally shot while trying to shoo off a gang member targeting his grandson, a prosecutors said, according to a NZ Herald report.
Rasmussen was fatally gunned down on the doorstep of his home three-and-a-half years ago.
He was trying “to shoo off a Crips 23 gang member who was there to target his grandson, jurors were told today as the trial began for a trio accused of murder”.
Vaitohi, 32, appeared at trial via an audio-visual feed today but left part-way through jury selection, after having entered a not guilty plea.
He was being incarcerated at the time of the alleged crime.
He pleaded not guilty.
Authorities allege Ethan Jessop, 24, shot Rasmussen in the leg with a recently acquired shotgun he nicknamed “Big Bad Beth”, while co-defendant Daziea Leslie Huia, 21, had arranged for a car to be used in the ambush and had participated in other planning. Both men sat in the High Court at Auckland dock today as the trial got under way following several days of delays that saw the selection of two different jury panels, the Herald said.
The case has drawn significant attention due to the bold claims of his involvement in the ambush while behind bars.
The New Zealand Herald report of the case said: “ Prosecutors said Vaitohi has been so incensed by the robbery of a drug house on his turf that he immediately set about orchestrating violent retribution in the days leading up to Rasmussen’s death. “
The original target of the gang-related ambush was Zharn Rasmussen, a member of the Killer Beez gang known on the street as ‘Obey,’ according to prosecutors.
“Rasmussen, who was living at his grandfather’s house while on electronically monitored community detention, and his girlfriend, Irene Ting, had allegedly robbed a nearby Crips-affiliated drug house just a week earlier, sparking tensions that may have led to the violent retaliation.”
During brief opening statements of their own, lawyers for Vaitohi and Jessup didn’t dispute that it was their clients on the calls referred to by prosecutors. But what they were discussing was not an intent to murder, the lawyers insisted, emphasising that at most their clients committed manslaughter.
“That most serious of charges is a bridge too far in these circumstances,” said Ian Brookie, who represents Vaitohi.
He asked jurors to be wary of interpreting phone calls in which they had no first-hand knowledge of the context. The Crown can’t prove that the elder Rasmussen’s death could have been known by Vaithohi to have been a probable consequence of what he was talking about on the phone.
