Footage released during trial of gang member shooting which took place at Sofitel hotel Auckland in 2021. Video / Supplied
Footage of a shooting inside the lobby of a five-star Auckland hotel amid gang warfare between the Head Hunters and the Mongols outlaw motorcycle clubs has been made public for the first time.
Jurors in the High Court at Auckland were shown the April 2021 CCTV reel from inside theSofitel Hotel today as five Head Hunters members and associates stand trial for a charge of discharging a firearm with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
Nobody was injured in the incident, but the footage showed two people - an alleged Mongols member and a hotel employee - diving out of their chairs as plaster flew from the wall. The incident, which happened at 9am in a popular tourist area, prompted a large police response.
A CCTV still shows the moment shots were fired inside the lobby of Auckland's five-star Sofitel Hotel on April 15, 2021. Photo / Supplied
The patched gang member who pulled the trigger was Hone Reihana, who pleaded guilty last week.
But prosecutors allege the remaining five co-defendants - Marcus Nielson, Fred Tanuvasa, Tyran Panapa, Paraire Paikea and a man who has name suppression - are equally as guilty for having contributed to the circumstances that led to the shooting.
Five Head Hunters members and associates are on trial in the High Court at Auckland. They are Paraire Paikea (bottom row left), Marcus Nielsen and Fred Tanuvasa. On the top row is a man with name suppression and Tyran Panapa. Photo / Michael Craig
Footage played today showed Reihana leaving the hotel and getting into a black ute with some of the co-defendants immediately after the shooting. Two other co-defendants who prosecutors described as not being able to fit in the vehicle were recorded hopping onto a bus to a Queen St store where they purchased and changed into new clothes.
Lawyers for most of the men have conceded they were in the vicinity of the shooting. But that doesn’t mean they had any idea Reihana was going to open fire that morning, the lawyers said yesterday as the three-week trial kicked off.
In the week prior to the shooting, a North Shore motorcycle repair shop that had recently changed allegiances from the Head Hunters to the Mongols was damaged after a car outside the business was set on fire. What followed was a series of acts of violence but ultimately not deadly retribution, prosecutors said, including the shooting of a Head Hunters-run gym, a shooting outside a Murrays Bay home where Mongols and Comancheros members lived and a shooting outside the Head Hunters headquarters in Mt Wellington.
Testifying via audiovisual feed, Sofitel employee Nikunj Mahida said today that he was the employee seen on camera ducking for cover after the shots were fired. He immediately ran behind a painting in the reception area to the hotel’s back office, he recalled.
“As soon as I went in the back office I called 111,” he said.
