Comancheros nominee Elijah Meyer (left) and patched member Patrick Langi (right) have been sentenced for violent retribution against the family of bodybuilder Khalid Slaimankhel, who wanted to leave the gang. Courtroom photos / Michael Craig
When an imprisoned high-profile Comancheros member wanted out of the gang life but refused to pay a hefty fine for doing so, a plan was set in motion to punish him by terrorising his family.
Now the patched member and Comancheros nominee who helped execute the plan - including shooting into a room with children and opening fire at an adult who was running away, grazing him - are in prison as well.
“This offending is of grave public concern,” Crown prosecutor Ben Kirkpatrick told Justice Ian Gault today as West Harbour resident Patrick Leonardo Langi, 26, and Papatoetoe resident Elijah Meyer, 23, appeared in the High Court at Auckland for sentencing.
While it may be unfortunately common to see violence between opposing gangs, “targeted retribution” focusing on the family of a departing member made the case unusual, he said.
The back-to-back shootings have left the victims still stressed two years later to live in their own homes, the court was told.
Langi, who became a patched member after his deportation from Australia, and Meyer, who was partially raised in Australia but voluntarily left, were initially charged with attempted murder.
They were set to go to trial earlier this year but it was cancelled after both agreed to instead plead guilty to lesser charges of discharging a weapon with reckless disregard and arson.
Court documents state Langi and Meyer carried out the shootings in August 2023 after high-ranking patched member Khalid Slaimankhel said he wanted out.
Slaimankhel is serving a six-year sentence in Whanganui prison for his part in a Comanchero’s methamphetamine distribution scheme.
On August 10, 2023 – just over two weeks before the shootings – the Department of Corrections searched Unit 8 of Rimutaka Prison, where gang president Pasilika Naufahu and fellow patched member Jalal Safi were housed.
Officers seized notebooks from Safi’s cell, as well as a mobile phone he was using when the search began.
Authorities would later realise the phone had been used to search Google Maps for the same streets where the shootings would later occur.
The notebooks also contained addresses on those streets, with notations such as “mum” and “brother older”.
Neither of the imprisoned gang members were charged.
On August 15, 10 days before the shootings, Langi used his phone to screenshot maps of the same addresses. That same day, co-defendant Meyer was “directed by unknown parties to conduct surveillance” on the addresses. He took notes and photos that were later recovered from his phone.
Langi and Meyer showed up at the first property, in Epsom, about 7pm on August 25, 2023. Meyer fired at least three shots while another unidentified man was armed but his gun appears to have jammed, documents state.
“One of the fired projectiles went through the wooden window frame of the master bedroom at the front of the house, causing the interior of the window frame to chip off,” court documents state.
“At the time of the shooting there were eight occupants within the house, including three young children playing in the master bedroom that was shot at.”
Thirteen minutes later, after fleeing the scene, the stolen car used by the duo was torched. Meyer and Langi arrived at the next home, in Hillsborough, at 7.31pm in a second stolen vehicle.
Meyer got out of the vehicle and began knocking on the door aggressively. Langi did not go up to the door with him, but he was charged with the same offence for having aided or encouraged the crime.
Those inside the home had been eating upstairs, and a man yelled that he was coming down. Meyer opened fire as the man opened the door, with the bullets lodging in the door as the victim attempted to shut it.
“Mr Meyer placed his foot in the door to attempt to keep it open but [the victim] managed to push the door closed, and locked it, before attempting to run up the stairs away from the defendant,” police noted in the summaries of facts for both men.
Meyer then walked to the front entrance window and aimed three more shots at the fleeing man – one of them grazing him in the back.
Less than 15 minutes later, the second stolen vehicle was set alight at nearby Nash Rd Reserve.
Police caught up to Meyer and Langi at 8.07pm that day after spotting them in a third stolen vehicle near the reserve. Gunshot residue was found in the vehicle and on both men’s clothing, authorities said.
“The defendant Langi declined to comment to most questions, [but] when confronted with the gunshot residue evidence he stated that it was ‘bullshit’ and police must have made that up,” court documents state.
Victim impact statements were provided to the court but Slaimankhel’s family declined to read them aloud.
They had come to New Zealand from Afghanistan seeking a “safer foundation” but now their children are traumatised and suffer nightmares, the court was told.
Langi and Meyer both faced up to 14 years’ imprisonment today for arson and up to seven years for discharging a firearm with reckless disregard.
Defence lawyers disagreed the plot was as uncommon as the prosecution had suggested. Family homes are unfortunately shot at often in gang culture, said Jasper Rhodes, who represented Langi.
He noted that Langi was sentenced to prison at age 18 for an aggravated assault, after which he was deported to New Zealand without support despite having lived in Australia since he was 5.
The defendant had developed cocaine, MDMA and cannabis habits as a young teen and began using methamphetamine and heroin on a near-daily basis while in prison, he told authorities.
But since his arrest, he had engaged in rehabilitation and had written a letter of apology, Rhodes said.
“He’s insightful as to how he got here,” he said of his client.
Justin Harder noted that Meyer, his client, was only 21 at the time of the offending and as a prospect was quite low in the Comancheros hierarchy.
“He’s not the architect,” he said of the retribution plot, describing a “power imbalance” in which his role was to follow orders.
Meyer was born in Australia but was sent to New Zealand by his mother as a young teen in hopes of getting him away from anti-social influences.
His father had died when he was 11 and his major male influences after that were his gang-connected older brothers, the lawyer said.
The change of scenery didn’t appear to work, and Meyer picked up a Youth Court notation for firearms offending.
“The reality was it didn’t matter what side of the Tasman he was on - he wasn’t able to escape that,” Harder said.
Meyer returned to Australia, then made a final return to New Zealand about 18 months before the shootings.
The judge ordered Meyer to serve a sentence of four years and four months’ imprisonment. Langi was sentenced to four years and seven months’ imprisonment.
He allowed some discounts for guilty pleas, background and remorse but said the reductions had to be weighed against their continued involvement in the gang.
Slaimankhel, formerly a Dunedin bodybuilder, was also found guilty in 2015 of kidnapping a fellow bodybuilder and perverting the course of justice.
He came from a good family, his lawyer said at his 2022 Auckland District Court sentencing on drug trafficking charges. Lawyer Mark Ryan said at the time his client turned to drugs and gangs after his father was killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan.
Dr Hashem Slaimankhel had been a physician in Afghanistan and Pakistan before arriving in New Zealand in 1998 and taking on a role as a refugee health worker.
His advocacy made enough of an impact in New Zealand that police publicly praised the “dedicated and deeply respected community leader” after his death in January 2018.
The elder Slaimankhel was among the nearly 100 people killed when an ambulance with a bomb inside detonated at a police checkpoint in Kabul. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the massacre.
At his 2022 sentencing, the younger Slaimankhel told Judge Evangelos Thomas he wanted to leave gang life behind him. Prosecutors voiced some scepticism but acknowledged the goal was a worthy one if genuine.
“It’s going to take an awful amount of work to make sure that is carried through,” Crown prosecutor Jacob Barry said.
The judge agreed, turning to Slaimankhel’s family and supporters, who filled the courtroom gallery, after the defendant was led away to begin serving his sentence. He encouraged them to continue supporting him.
“If people aren’t working hard around him, he’s going to be straight into that [gang] environment,” the judge said. “This work is really only beginning now.”
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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