Killer was on parole

By PATRICK GOWER

The man convicted of stabbing a South Auckland liquor store owner to death during a robbery was on parole at the time after another violent attack on an Indian shopkeeper.

William Samson Holtz, who was yesterday found guilty of murdering Shiu Prasad, started raiding Indian-owned shops two months after he was paroled halfway through a four-year robbery sentence.

Forty-two-year-old Holtz was also found guilty of the aggravated robbery of Mr Prasad during the same fatal attack in Mangere on August 29, 2000.

A jury in the High Court at Auckland found him guilty of one other aggravated robbery but not guilty on three robbery-related counts, including an earlier attempted raid on Mr Prasad.

Holtz will be sentenced next month and, because of his previous convictions, Crown Solicitor Simon Moore will seek an extension to the 10-year minimum non-parole period on his life sentence.

Holtz's life of crime is understood to have started in 1974 at the age of 15 when he was convicted of common assault and possession of an offensive weapon. Over the next 26 years, he notched up 14 convictions for assault or weapons possession, and was convicted of aggravated robberies, including a raid on a Papakura dairy in 1989, for which he was jailed for six years.

He had been involved with the Black Power gang since his teens, rising to "lifetime member" status and the rank of sergeant-at-arms in his chapter, and served time in penal institutions ranging from borstal to Paremoremo.

In April 1998, Holtz was convicted of using a 30cm knife to rob an Indian shopkeeper in September 1997, earning a four-year prison term. The Herald understands he was released in April 2000 after serving half that sentence and robbed an Indian shopkeeper in Mangere in June - 11 weeks before the attack on Mr Prasad. By the time he killed Mr Prasad, Holtz had amassed 50 convictions.

After the jury returned its verdict yesterday, Mr Prasad's widow, Satya, told the Herald the family were upset Holtz had been released on parole only to commit similar crimes and eventually kill.

"We want him kept in this time."

Mrs Prasad sat through every day of the six-week trial, weeping silently in the back of court when evidence was given of how her dying husband repeatedly asked one of the first officers at the scene to tell her he loved her.

She was joined yesterday by their 24-year-old twins, daughter Sitanshu and son Ashu. The twins came from Fiji, where Ashu is an airline pilot.

Ashu Prasad said the verdict "really doesn't change much for us as a family in terms of having lost our father. We just want it so he won't be released to do this to someone else's family."

The family are selling the Mangere liquor store, and Mrs Prasad has returned to relief work after leaving her job as a home economics teacher at Southern Cross Campus school.

A Victim Support volunteer for five years, she praised the help her fellow counsellors had given her. She also said it was "a special day for us" - referring to a Hindu day of worship called Shiv Ratri, which the family had also loosely translated as "Shiu's night tonight".

Holtz's 1989 victim in Papakura, Paramjit Singh, told the Herald he was "disappointed, but in no way surprised" that Holtz had eventually murdered.

"We thought he was going to kill one of us that day. We see now that all his violence is towards Indians in their stores, and it is my feeling he was going to end up killing one, whether he wanted to or not.

"I really think he is someone who prefers life on the inside."

The Corrections Department refused to comment on the case.

Act justice spokesman Stephen Franks, who introduced a bill in 2000 to reform parole procedures, said he believed the entire system should be abolished.

The Prasad family had "every right to believe their loved one has been killed by the arrogance of the Parole Board elite who have been running criminal justice instead of the courts".

But Peter Williams, QC, of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said a closer examination of the facts might reveal that it was the prison system that failed repeat offenders such as Holtz.

"If we just coop them up in cells off and on all their lives, what do we expect on their release. It is like putting a dog on a chain without food: they get vicious."