Akash murder trial: Defendant said Gurpreet Kaur's stabbing death was self-inflicted

Akash, who previously admitted to stabbing his pregnant girlfriend to death in 2016, is on trial for murder. Photo / Michael Craig

"I just want to say that that's not actually a murder. It's the suicide by her."

Early on the morning of 11 April 2016, detectives had sat down with Akash for a third interview at Manukau Police Station.

In the first two lengthy interviews, which took place the day prior, the South Auckland security guard repeatedly insisted he didn't know the whereabouts of his pregnant girlfriend, Gurpreet Kaur, who had gone missing days earlier. But by the end of that day, after the camera was turned off, he had agreed to show them where her body was.

Now, after a night's sleep in a jail cell, Akash, who is known only by that name, wanted to explain to them why he had that knowledge.

"She was not happy with her family because of their pressure," he told a detective at the beginning of the 6.30am interview, which was played for jurors today at the High Court at Auckland as his murder trial continued. "They don't want her to marry me or stay with me, so on that day she was having a knife with her and I was not having any party of that.

"I'm not that type of person. I haven't done any crime before or any murder before.

"She kept telling me she doesn't want to go home because those people, they telling different stories about me, like I'm not mentally fit, I'm paranoid - that type of thing."

Months after the interview, Akash would change tack again, pleading guilty to murder. His conviction, however, was overturned in 2020 by the Court of Appeal so that a jury can decide whether or not he was so mentally ill at the time of Kaur's death that he didn't know what he was doing was wrong.

On the morning of Kaur's death, Akash told police in the interview, she had said she wanted to go on a "long drive" then pulled out the knife as they were on the motorway heading south from Auckland to Hamilton.

"The first, she just like stab, trying to stab on the neck," Akash told police in broken English, referring to his girlfriend's slit throat. "I want to, like, snatch the knife from her, but she had done another stab like this."

He said he was concerned so he pulled over and tried to talk to her.

"Then she tried to...do the same on me," he said. "I was like, 'Why are you doing that? Are you mad?'

"I was just scared, and she was like, 'Kill me now. Kill me. I want to die.' And then I just snatched the knife from her... I stabbed her, in scaredness.

"People think I'm mad but now I want to go for the treatment, if I'm really mad, or I want to go for the test if I am paranoid."

Prosecutors have said Kaur was cut or stabbed 28 times in the 7 April 2016 attack. Akash, police have testified, appeared to have no injuries himself.

Jurors on Monday also watched Akash's first two interviews with police. In them, he repeatedly steered the conversation to his beliefs that people had been following him in recent days.

"What do they look like?" asked Detective James Ralph, who conducted the interview.

"Um, all mix," Akash responded. "I've seen Indian ones and Chinese also, white people and Māoris. I seen heaps, you know what I mean?

"They never talk to me. They behave like strangers to me - show that they are not doing anything, but they just follow me."

The detective pointed out to the suspect over several hours that they had found his car with blood in it and that Akash's own brother had told them Akash had confessed to the killing.

"Maybe he killed her," Akash said of his older brother. "I don't know why. He gets jealous so maybe he's done something."

Detective Ralph told Akash it didn't make sense that his own brother would make up a confession.

"I think you might know some more, Akash, and you're not telling me," he said.

"Nah, boss, seriously I don't know," Akash responded. "If you kill somebody, there must be a reason. What's the reason to kill her?"