Historic attempted murder trial: Accused blames dead brother for shooting

"It was my brother who did it" Tauranga man Warren Uata Kiwi repeatedly insisted in a taped police interview.

But his tune changed some way into the interview with the confession he was the armed man who confronted Rotorua logging contractor Karl Nyman in the pre-dawn hours of July 31, 2002.

The lawyer defending Kiwi in the High Court at Rotorua on charges of attempting to murder Nyman and conspiring with others to commit his murder, challenged Detective Mahara Alcock that the confession only came after she and a colleague had spoken to Kiwi off camera.

Gene Tomlinson put it to Alcock that they had told Kiwi if he did not own up he would be locked up and put on remand. "That's absolutely rubbish," Alcock retorted.

She agreed Kiwi had been told he would feel a lot better if he got a weight off his shoulders.

Her questioning followed the DVD interview that was played to the jury this
afternoon.

In it Kiwi revealed the brother he was blaming, Graeme Kiwi, had died in jail while serving a 14-year sentence.

He talked of a conversation he had with a man who wanted him to kill someone in Rotorua but did not go into details, however, he understood it was all to do with "that land down the coast."

He told Alcock the man had talked to him about receiving 5lbs (2.3kg) of cannabis in return for what was required of him.

"I told him to **** off. He didn't tell me who it was, he just gave me an address and said he wanted this guy taken out . . . I told my bro and that was that."

He said some time later his brother came back and told him "I have done it", but because the man was Māori, not Pākehā, he had not killed him.

"He said he stole a .22 from Dad . . . I don't know if he got his 5lbs."

Questioned about the person down the coast Kiwi said he was "a hard man, a stand-over tactics guy, nasty".

He described himself as someone who did not drink or smoke, cared for his kids and made sure everyone in his family was safe.

He denied telling a previous Crown witness he had been responsible for shooting at Nyman.

"You talked to her about things at that address only a person who was there would know . . . you told her of a struggle with the gun and it went off," Alcock said.

Kiwi responded that was exactly how his brother said it was.

Alcock accused him of using his dead brother to get away with the shooting.

"You can say what you like," was Kiwi's response.

After a break, while the two detectives conferred and the DVD resumed, Kiwi said: "I must admit it was me, I put my brother's name under the bus."

He insisted he had not received any reward for what he had done and repeated it was his brother who stole the .22 rifle from their father.

The Crown has closed its case.