A religious fanatic who was recruited to stab to death a fellow Auckland resident he’d never met — then, as the victim fought for his life in surgery, boasted of a plan to burn down his house during his funeral — has been sentenced to prison.
Overstayer Jobanpreet Singh, 27, bowed to a half-dozen supporters and gave a thumbs-up signal this morning as he left the dock in the High Court at Auckland to begin serving a nine-year sentence.
“Your continuous denial ... speaks to low prospects of rehabilitation as you’ve expressed no remorse,” Justice Mark Woolford had noted moments earlier, describing the attack as “vicious” and “motivated by religious and possibly political views”.
Jurors found Singh guilty of attempted murder in October alongside Auckland-based Sikh temple leader Gurinderpal Brar, who was described as the mastermind of the plan to ambush and kill radio host Harnek Singh in the driveway of his Wattle Down home.
The December 23, 2020, attack was almost successful. The radio host — whose fans number in the hundreds of thousands, but also has courted a fair number of critics due to his political views in India and more “liberal” take on Sikhism — suffered more than 40 stab wounds and would have probably bled to death had an officer not arrived on the scene quickly.
“I came face to face with a gang of people who had come to kill me, fuelled by my beliefs,” the radio host said in a written victim impact statement that was read aloud by prosecutors today, describing a slow, painful recovery that included over 350 stitches to his head and upper body.
“In the horror of the unaccountable stab wounds that were being delivered into my body, I was unable to escape, imprisoned in my car. I believed I would not be able to make it out alive. I mentally said goodbye to my wife and my son forever.”
Prosecutors described Jobanpreet Singh during the trial as a loyal devotee of Brar’s who could almost — but not quite — be seen as a brainwashed victim himself. He was also secretly seeing the temple leader’s daughter — his unguarded text exchanges with her providing fodder for prosecutors throughout the trial.
Jobanpreet Singh had maintained, even after the guilty verdict, that he was never among the small crowd of men who attacked the radio host that night. Two others pleaded guilty to the attack before the trial, and one of them entered the witness box to testify against both co-defendants.
Prisoner Jaspal Singh said Brar had recruited the henchmen, including himself, at his popular East Tāmaki temple, which is thought to have about 2000 members. In the hours before the killing, the witness said he was taken to a private room in the temple where other devotees were massaging Brar. He was given a bag of weapons and a blessing from Brar before leaving to meet up with the other attackers, he said.
Brar was never part of the physical attack, preferring to use his power and influence to pull the strings in the background, prosecutors said.
Jobanpreet Singh, meanwhile, had fallen on hard times after losing both parents in India and borrowing money to move to New Zealand in 2015 on a student visa — only to be hit with repeated setbacks as school after school shut down. He had aimed for a better life in New Zealand in which he could earn money for his struggling siblings and grandparents in India, but his visa had expired and could not find fulltime work.
That background, combined with his devout religiousness, seemed to make him especially susceptible to manipulation by an older male figure, the defence and prosecutors agreed today.
“None of that excuses what he did,” lawyer Peter Kaye told the judge today. “The attempted execution ... of another human being is inexcusable.”
But it should be taken into consideration when considering discounts for the defendant, he argued, suggesting the sentencing was in part “academic” because his client will be deported as soon as his jail term ends. His eventual return to India about 15 to 20 years after he left — “with nothing and only the slimmest hopes for the future” — would be a sad affair when considering his initial hopes upon arrival in New Zealand, Kaye said.
Crown prosecutor Jay Tausi urged the judge not to view it as an “academic” exercise, arguing that it needed to be lengthy to deter similar attacks in the future. Despite his “sympathetic upbringing”, the defendant has been assessed as a moderate-to-high risk of harming others, due in part to his lack of remorse, the prosecutor noted.
Attempted murder carries a maximum possible sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment. Brar, the spiritual leader, was sentenced in November to 13 and a half years’ jail.
Justice Woolford noted today that the two other men who pleaded guilty to participating in the attack on the radio host had been given 12-and-a-half-years starting points before factoring in discounts for things such as their guilty pleas and remorse.
Jobanpreet Singh, he said, deserved a slightly lesser starting point of 11 and a half years because there was no evidence he helped plan the attack or that he actually stabbed the victim during the driveway ambush. That might, he noted, have only been due to lack of access — with the three attackers gathered around a small side window that had been bashed in on the radio host’s ute.
The judge noted Jobanpreet Singh was described in reference letters to the court as “soft-hearted”, “service-oriented” and “compassionate”, as well as someone who was devoted to “sewa” — an aspect of Sikhim in which selfless service is performed to help others without any expectation of personal gain. But the letters, the judge also noted, had to be taken with a grain of salt when considering they came from people within the same organisation linked to the offending.
He allowed discounts for his background, but declined one for previous good behaviour, quoting directly from a text exchange presented during the trial in which the defendant enthusiastically boasted of plans to burn down the victim’s house.
“We might leave his son alone with mercy but won’t let his wife alive — she’s a bitch,” the judge quoted the defendant as also telling his partner.
The judge also read aloud a lengthy excerpt from Harnek Singh’s victim impact statement, describing it as a harrowing account of what he had endured.
“You came to kill me. You wanted to take me away from my family,” the statement read. “You tried to silence me. You wanted to send a chilling message to all those who express disagreement with your unorthodox religious views. But you failed ...
“I will continue to express my opinions and beliefs as I always have. The only chilling message you have managed to send is to people with the same views and opinions as yours that actions have consequences and that in a country like New Zealand, the law does not bend for you if your unlawful acts are in the name of God.”
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.
Customs has accused the pair of attempting to smuggle almost 500,000 cigarettes into NZ.