Auckland motorist recalls road rage attack by Fitus gang members before fatal shooting of Head Hunter Charles Pongi

Fitus gang members George Mahoni (centre) and Vili Laungaue (right) are among five co-defendants accused of murdering Head Hunters member Charles Pongi (left). The two defendants are also accused of being involved in a road rage incident while en route to the deadly confrontation. Photos / Michael Craig

A father driving home to his two young children after a Saturday morning work shift described a terrifying situation after inadvertently finding himself surrounded by a convoy of gang members on Auckland’s Great South Rd.

Manuele Vii briefly struggled with his emotions, his voice quavering, as he recalled for jurors this week the road rage incident that followed – including a masked man who approached his window at a red traffic light as others kicked and damaged the car.

“He told me if I’m not going out of the car he’ll shoot me,” the witness said through a Samoan translator and his own broken English, explaining that images of his 3-month-old son and 3-year-old daughter at home flashed before him.

“I was thinking, ‘I’m dead. I’m dead’.

“That’s why it’s really hard for me to [be] thinking about it.”

Vii left the Ōtāhuhu intersection unscathed, except for his damaged vehicle, after the light changed and the men got back into their vehicles.

But later in the afternoon, another person would die after the gang convoy arrived at its intended destination – an East Auckland park where there was to be a planned confrontation with the Head Hunters.

Police investigate the scene of a disorder event resulting in the death of Charles Pongi at Taurima Reserve, Pt England, in August 2023. Photo / Hayden Woodward

Fitus gang members Devonte Iakopo, George Mahoni, Vili Laungaue and Lika Feterika, as well as gang associate Vini Mahoni, are all jointly accused of murdering Head Hunters member Charles Pongi at Pt England’s Taurima Reserve on August 5, 2023.

Their trial began this week and all have pleaded not guilty. Each defendant has acknowledged being at the park that day but they say the shooting was legally justified after an unidentified Head Hunters associate was beckoned to the park and opened fire on the crowd.

CCTV and witness footage of the melee show Pongi had been standing not far behind the mystery shooter when a bullet entered his collarbone and lodged in his spine.

There was no intention when they arrived at the park of getting into a gunfight, each defendant’s lawyer has said. Prosecutors, in their opening address for the murder trial, disagreed.

In addition to that deadly confrontation, jurors in the High Court at Auckland have been tasked with deciding whether defendants Laungaue and George Mahoni were also involved with threatening and assaulting Vii during the road rage incident.

Two other Fitus members not currently on trial have already pleaded guilty to participating in the car attack, but it is alleged Laungaue flashed a gun and George Mahoni smashed a car window. They deny those charges as well.

Jurors watched CCTV from a nearby car yard showing the confrontation before Vii was called to the witness box yesterday and today to give his own account of what happened.

He had been driving home around 1pm when he said he noticed another motorist driving oddly – speeding up, pulling in front of him and braking repeatedly.

Co-defendants George Mahoni (left), Vili Laungaue, Devonte Iakopo, Lika Feterika and Vini Mahoni are on trial in the High Court at Auckland accused of murdering Head Hunters member Charles Pongi in August 2023. Photos / Michael Craig

Three men ran from the car in front of him and started hitting his car, he said, explaining a window was “smashed” by one of them with something hard, possibly knuckle-dusters. Prosecutors say that was George Mahoni.

Then a fourth man, alleged by prosecutors to be Laungaue, emerged from a white van beside the car and pulled out a handgun, the witness recalled. Vii said he had his window cracked open to communicate with the group but did not want to open his door or get out.

The men ran back to their cars as the light turned green, he said. He followed the group for a short time in an attempt to get their rego plates to give police, but then he noticed another car pull up beside him and abandoned the effort.

Sitting in the front passenger seat of the light-coloured Audi was another masked man, unidentified by prosecutors, holding what Vii described as a long-barrelled gun in two hands.

“He put down the window and showed me the gun and was laughing,” Vii said, adding that the gun was pointed down and the man didn’t say anything. “To be honest, that time I was scared. I was so scared.”

Vii said he went straight to Ōtāhuhu police station but it was closed on weekends. He then called police and when no one came to his home immediately, he drove to the Manukau Police Station to talk to someone in person.

Defence lawyer Richard Keam, who represents Laungaue, replayed CCTV footage multiple times today as he cross-examined the witness. He pointed out the man who emerged from the van, alleged to be his client, was at Vii’s window for less than two seconds before everyone got back in their cars and drove away.

“Everything happened so fast, didn’t it?” Keam asked, to which the witness agreed. “Do you accept that two seconds isn’t enough for the man to say, ‘Get out of the car or I’ll shoot you’?”

The lawyer also suggested Vii was more angry than scared.

“I saw the gun,” the witness repeatedly replied, insisting that his overriding emotion was fear.

“For me, to be honest, the man was there,” he said. “That’s why I tell the police. Because I’m not lying on this one. He tell me get out of the car or he’ll shoot me.”

Fellow gang members turned out in large numbers for the funeral of Charles Pongi, who was fatally shot at Taurima Reserve on August 5, 2023. Photo / NZME

Keam suggested the man might have heard or remembered wrong, out of fear and because English was his second language.

“No,” the man insisted. “That’s what he said to me.”

Defence lawyer Kirsten Moyer, representing George Mahoni, pointed out during her cross-examination that the witness never mentioned knuckle-dusters in his statement to police.

“One of them went to my passenger side and smashed my front window,” he had said in a statement three days after the incident that was translated from Samoan to English. “I don’t know how they did it. I assumed it was with a hard object.”

Vii acknowledged the police report and his evidence in court were somewhat different but insisted his recollection was correct.

“I’m very sure,” he said. “I saw it in my own eyes. I’m sure because I’m inside the car.”

Mahoni is charged with common assault as a result of the incident and Laungaue is charged with unlawfully carrying a pistol and threatening to do grievous bodily harm. All of the charges pale in comparison to the murder accusations they face.

But prosecutors have suggested the incident is important to jurors because it shows the group’s propensity to use weapons for purposes of intimidation and violence rather than self-defence.

The convoy made one more stop in Panmure between the incident with Vii and when they arrived at the Pt England reserve. Jurors watched CCTV of the group at that stop as well. In it, prosecutors allege, they appeared to laugh and re-enact the incident with Vii.

The trial is set to resume on Tuesday, when Justice Greg Blanchard and the lawyers are expected to accompany the jury on a trip to see the reserve in person.

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.

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