Witeri Neketai has been re-sentenced for the killing of Tauranga businessman Gary Kimura. Photo/file
Witeri Neketai has been re-sentenced for the killing of Tauranga businessman Gary Kimura. Photo/file
The Te Puke man responsible for the death of Tauranga businessman Gary Kimura has been re-sentenced for his crime, after an original murder conviction was quashed and replaced with manslaughter.
Witeri Ahomiro Neketai, 37, was yesterday re-sentenced to preventive detention for at least six years in prison.
Neketai was convictedby a jury in July last year of murdering Mr Kimura after he attacked him at his Margaret Rd home on October 5, 2011, over a $30,000 drug debt.
Neketai was originally sentenced to life imprisonment in 2013 but the Court of Appeal justices ruled there was no 'evidential foundation' of a verdict of murder and substituted it with a manslaughter conviction.
The the summing up of Neketai's case this week Justice J Brewer told Neketai he was a 'dangerous man'.
''You are fit, strong and trained as a kick boxed. You killed Mr Kimura by a king hit to his head. But while waiting on remand for your trial you attacked two other men in a similar way. You nearly killed one.''
