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Home / New Zealand

Urewera trial: Defendants identified on camera footage

APNZ
22 Feb, 2012 06:23 AM3 mins to read

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The accused - (from left) Te Rangikaiwhira Kemara, Emily Felicity Bailey, Urs Signer and Tame Wairere Iti - in the dock in the High Court at Auckland yesterday. Photo / Brett Phibbs

The accused - (from left) Te Rangikaiwhira Kemara, Emily Felicity Bailey, Urs Signer and Tame Wairere Iti - in the dock in the High Court at Auckland yesterday. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Footage captured by hidden cameras in the bush around Ruatoki shows groups of people waking down a track with guns during an alleged military-style training camp.

The 11 jurors deciding the case of Tame Wairere Iti, Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara, Emily Felicity Bailey and Urs Signer watched the footage from September, 2007.

The defendants have denied charges of possessing guns and belonging to an organised criminal group which had objectives including murder, arson and using guns against the police.

Jason Lunjevich, a Detective Sergeant from the Auckland Metro Crime and Operations Support, told the court that he had spent days, possibly weeks, in total hours watching the footage from the camps.

He said he pieced together who was at the camps in 2006 and 2007 by comparing footage with items of clothing seized in police raids.

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During one sequence of video he identified Iti handing a gun to his nephew Rawiri. He also pointed out Signer holding a gun.

He is yet to be cross-examined by lawyers for the defence.

Earlier, the court heard from two teenagers who thought they were getting involved in training young Maori but instead they were blindfolded, pulled out of their car and ordered to lie down on a bush track as three shots were fired.

The two brothers, who have name suppression, said they knew a man who ran a gym and agreed to drive with him to meet Iti in Ruatoki.

"I thought we were just going down there to train some Maori youths to get a better life,'' the elder brother told the court. He was 16-years-old at the time.

He said Iti gave them cloths and told them to put them over their face to protect their identities and to cover their eyes with blindfolds.

The group then drove into the bush with Iti at the wheel.

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"We were stopped at a set-up road block. There was a log across the road and a man holding a gun and a stick... He fired some shots into the air and asked us to get out of the car.''

The man said about 10 or 11 people were around the car and he saw that four of them had guns.

"They told us to lie on the ground facedown while they patted us down.''

He was asked by Crown prosecutor Ross Burns how he felt about that.

"I didn't really think that much,'' the man told the court, "I was just in shock.''

He said afterwards they walked up a bush track to a make-shift camp site where there was a discussion about nutrition.

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"We did some demonstrations like kicking and punching and stuff.''

He said that on the way back to Ruatoki there was a discussion in the car.

"Mr Iti claimed it was [for] training troops for battle, urban warfare and stuff like that.''

Under cross-examination from Iti's lawyer, Russell Fairbrother, the man confirmed that Iti did not wear a mask and was also ordered out of the car and patted down.

He told Mr Fairbrother that the group had apologised for the ambush.

The trial is set down for three months.

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