A Rotorua man stabbed his drinking partner to death after he started "conjuring up the gods", a court has heard.
The retrial of Christopher Allan Heenan, 54, began in the High Court at Rotorua this morning in front of Justice Raynor Asher.
Heenan, who worked as a carver, artist and tattooist, is charged with murdering 36-year-old Rotorua man Raukawa Newton on October 11, 2007.
This morning, Justice Asher told the jury the case was a retrial but they should not speculate on the reasons for that.
"What happened in that [first] trial is irrelevant."
In her opening statement Rotorua Crown solicitor Amanda Gordon told the jury Heenan and Mr Newton, who suffered from bipolar disorder, were drinking that evening at Heenan's Konene St house.
She said it was the Crown's case that Heenan stabbed Mr Newton with either a large carving knife, a Leatherman tool or both when Mr Newton began "conjuring up gods". The wound severed Mr Newton's aorta and he died within two minutes, she said.
Ms Gordon said Heenan then stabbed himself six times in the abdomen and once in the arm - but these were superficial wounds designed to make it look like he had been acting in self defence.
She said in the months following Mr Newton's death Heenan gave people various accounts of what happened, but the two main themes were either he didn't remember what happened or that Mr Newton had stabbed him first.
Ms Gordon said in January 2008 Heenan admitted to a man he had "killed the f****** n***** and he was proud of it".
She said the account Heenan gave to that man, who is a witness for the Crown, clearly matched the forensic evidence from the scene examination.
The trial is expected to last two weeks.