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Jurors watched CCTV footage of Dariush Talagi shooting Sione Tuuholoaki in the head on Queen St.
Prosecutors described the shooting as “execution-style” and an act of retribution during a brawl.
Talagi’s defence argued the shots were in self-defence or to protect his partner’s brother.
The sound of a pistol blast rang out in the courtroom today as jurors in the murder trial of Dariush Talagi watched video for the first time of the defendant walking up to a man on Auckland Central’s Queen St and shooting him in the backof the head.
The CCTV footage, described by prosecutors Alysha McClintock and Helen Brown as “crystal clear”, showed Sione Tuuholoaki, 26, crouched over another man in the midst of a brawl among two groups of strangers. He didn’t appear to notice Talagi, 25, approach from behind in the moments before the fatal shot was fired.
Tuuholoaki dropped to the ground immediately, breathing but not moving on his own for the duration of the lengthy footage that followed. He would be taken off life support the following day.
But was that shot and three others fired by Talagi on the evening of August 3, 2023, justified? That is what jurors in the High Court at Auckland will be tasked with deciding over the next two weeks, they were told today as lawyers on both sides delivered opening addresses.
“Dariush Talagi is charged with murder because he shot Sione Tuuholoaki in the back of the head at point-blank range, execution-style,” Brown said.
She characterised the shooting as an act of “retribution” during a fight that Talagi egged on, knowing he had the upper hand with the gun concealed inside a small carrying bag.
Dariush Talagi. Photo / Supplied
Talagi’s lawyers, however, told jurors that all four shots fired that evening were either in self-defence or defence of his partner’s brother, who walked with an unsteady limp due to a prior head injury. His partner’s brother was the person on the ground whom Tuuholoaki was crouching over when Tuuholoaki was shot in the head.
“Mr Talagi accepts and acknowledged he shot and killed Mr Talagi,” defence lawyer Jo Scott said during her brief statement.
Jurors will have to consider the circumstances as her client saw them that night, she said, adding that what he did was reasonable when viewed from his perspective.
She will have an opportunity to give a more full address later in the trial.
Talagi turned himself in on November 16 that year, 105 days after the incident. In the meantime, his photo had been shown repeatedly in the media as police made appeals to the public for help locating him.
Sione Tuuholoaki was fatally shot on Queen St in central Auckland in August 2023. Photo / Supplied
He was charged with the murder of Tuuholoaki and wounding another man – Jarome Alexander, who was shot in the arm and the gut – with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. Alexander survived.
Prosecutors described a situation that quickly turned volatile at the end of a night in which two groups had visited bars in the area.
Tuuholoaki had been out with Alexander and three other workmates who, after “quite a few drinks”, were sitting on a bench outside, Brown said.
“Maybe they were being a bit rowdy, calling out at passersby,” she said, explaining that Talagi and his partner were addressed by the group as they rode by on scooters.
Talagi seemed to get angry and start fiddling with his bag that contained the gun after one of the strangers yelled out a childish and profane insult about Talagi’s partner, Tiari Boon-Harris, prosecutors said.
Sound at that point of the video was not recorded but Tuuholoaki and his friends faced off with Talagi, who appeared angry and defiant even as he was significantly outnumbered. A friend of Tuuholoaki‘s threw the first punch and the group began punching and kicking the defendant as he fell to the ground.
The first two shots, wounding Alexander’s arm and his stomach, were fired as Talagi remained surrounded on the ground.
But the fighting continued and just feet away Tuuholoaki appeared to be attacking Bobby Boon-Harris, the brother of Talagi’s partner. Bobby Boon-Harris, it was noted to jurors, suffers partial paralysis due to a brain bleed he suffered in 2018.
Had Talagi’s intention been to protect Bobby Boon-Harris, he could have shoved Tuuholoaki away or punched him, the prosecutors said. He even could have fired a warning shot or aimed at Tuuholoaki’s leg.
“Mr Talagi could literally have done anything else in that situation,” she said.
Tiari Boon-Harris. Photo / Supplied
But instead, Brown said, the defendant paused only to pull his shirt over his face in a belated bid to hide his identity before the “execution-style” shot. He then opened fire one more time on another person in the group who was at that point standing to the side. The shot missed.
Video showed Talagi jumping back on the Lime scooter he had been on before the altercation took place and speeding away from the scene.
His partner followed on another rental scooter. Her brother tried to get on a scooter but lost his balance. He slowly limped away as bystanders and security started to arrive.
After opening addresses finished, jurors spent over an hour watching more CCTV footage from that evening, including the hours before the fight and the hasty fleeing in the 30 minutes that followed. Cameras showed Talagi’s BMW SUV leaving a city centre garage and driving past the High Court before he entered the motorway with his partner.
Three friends who had been with the couple were seen leaving in a similar manner, seemingly fumbling nervously as they forgot to pay their parking fee while leaving the garage. They hit a rubbish bin as they arrived at a Manukau apartment around midnight and manoeuvred the car they had been driving into their own garage.
The best evidence jurors will have of the defendant’s state of mind, the Crown suggested, will be his own actions shown in the video.
“The footage reveals how quickly Mr Talagi resorted to the gun,” Brown said. “This was a clear act of retribution. He shot Mr Tuuholoaki because he could.
“ ... That’s not self-defence.”
Electric scooters abandoned on lower Queen St after a shooting incident at 11.30pm on August 3, 2023. Photo / Hayden Woodward
Two security guards later told jurors of their attempts to intervene in the middle of the fight before retreating around the corner as the first shots rang out.
Carlos Alaiasa, who was wearing a body camera, recalled focusing on trying to step between Bobby Boon-Harris and a member of the other group, Junior Pua. It appeared that Bobby-Boon Harris had been knocked unconscious but Pua was continuing to throw hard punches, he recalled, not mentioning the participants by name.
“Hey uso, he’s already down,” he was recorded saying to the man throwing punches as he tried to de-escalate the situation.
Talagi’s partner, in the meantime, was screaming at the man who had been throwing punches at her brother.
“You f***ing idiot, he’s disabled!” she yelled moments before the first shot rang out.
Alexander, who was shot by Talagi but survived, later gave his own somewhat spotty account of what happened that night. He had started drinking with Tuuholoaki and other co-workers after work finished at 5pm that day then went into the city centre for dinner and drinks. He had been their supervisor.
He acknowledged he felt drunk by the time they crossed paths with the defendant and his group.
As Tulagi and his partner rode by the first time, Alexander recalled co-worker Jekamiah Ah-Fook using the word “slut” as he called out to the female. The pair continued on their way but returned about a minute or two later and more words were exchanged, he said, adding that he couldn’t remember exactly what was said the second time.
“It was pretty much straightforward,” he said of the violence that followed. “Taunting started happening.”
By the way Talagi was reaching into his pocket, Alexander said he believed the stranger had a knife. He jumped into the fray anyway, he said, to help his mates because of the suspected weapon.
“Why didn’t you tell your boys to stop?” defence lawyer Conrad Wright asked, suggesting that would have been the most efficient way to protect his friends if that was his overriding concern.
“I didn’t think they could hear me,” the witness replied.
The defence had Alexander watch the video repeatedly. He acknowledged that at one point of the confrontation he appeared to sneak off to the side to see if Talagi had any friends around the corner. Moments later, he gave a signal and Ah-Fook threw the first punch at Talagi.
Alexander insisted the gesture was aimed at Talagi and was meant to warn him not to pull out a weapon. But after repeated viewings, he acknowledged that Talagi was looking away when he made the gesture.
The defence suggested the gesture was actually intended for his friends, letting them know that no back-up was arriving for the stranger so it was okay to begin attacking.
“You’re giving the all-clear for Jekamiah to attack Mr Tilagi?” Wright asked.
“I don’t believe so,” the witness insisted.
“It’s a well-co-ordinated group attack, isn’t it?” Wright followed. “Do you agree it’s obvious Mr Talagi didn’t want to fight your group? He didn’t have a choice, did he?”
“I knew he was going to pull something out but I didn’t know what,” he said.
The trial is set to continue tomorrow before Justice Mathew Downs and the jury.
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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