Korean backpack killer jailed for 21 years

Hayden Brent McKenzie has been sentenced to life in prison with a non-parole period of 21 years for his part in the murder of Korean backpacker Jae Hyeon Kim.

Name suppression was lifted in the High Court at Wellington today when McKenzie was sentenced after earlier pleading guilty to murdering Mr Kim at Charleston, near Westport, in September or October 2003.

Mr Kim's body was recovered earlier this year.

The lifting of name suppression revealed that in 2005 McKenzie was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of James John (Janis) Bamborough, a homosexual man killed in Westport in 1999. He had already served four years and two months of the sentence.

- NZPA