A 27-year-old Tongan seasonal worker has been sentenced to four and a half years in a New Zealand prison after stabbing a fellow Tongan worker four times during a drunken confrontation at their accommodation in the Tasman District.
The victim, aged 21, suffered serious injuries and later returned to Tonga after the attack left him fearful for his safety, the New Zealand Herald reported.
Fine Mateaki’i He Lotu Muli appeared in Nelson District Court on Friday, where Judge Tony Snell sentenced him for wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
According to the Herald’s Open Justice report, the incident occurred in the early hours of March 14 at seasonal workers’ accommodation in Lower Moutere.
Muli and the victim had worked together on New Zealand orchards for three years under the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme.
The confrontation reportedly began over allegations concerning the victim’s treatment of another worker.
Although colleagues initially separated the two men, another confrontation followed, during which Muli pulled out a filleting knife and stabbed the victim twice in the lower back, once near the spine and once in the thigh.
One of the wounds reached the victim’s kidney, causing a small cut. He spent a week in hospital and required crutches for three days.
Muli later told police he had consumed about 10 cans of pre-mixed alcohol and shared three bottles of wine with the victim, claiming he was too intoxicated to remember the stabbing.
Crown prosecutor Jerome Lao told the court the victim had travelled to New Zealand to earn a living but had been left with little choice but to return to Tonga.
The court heard that Muli, a father of two, had been saving money to buy a car to transport his children to school in Tonga.
Judge Snell acknowledged that Muli had previously been a reliable worker with no criminal history and that the offending was out of character.
The judge reduced a seven-year starting sentence to four and a half years after considering his early guilty plea, previous good character and the additional hardship of imprisonment in a foreign country.
Muli received a first warning under New Zealand’s Three Strikes law and faces deportation after his release from prison.
The New Zealand Herald reported that Muli must serve at least one-third of his sentence before becoming eligible for release, with the Parole Board responsible for determining his release conditions.
