Downfall of Minister for Murder

By ALISON HORWOOD

APIA - The Samoan politician behind the evil plot to kill a high-flying colleague entered politics after his plan to fake his own death and claim life insurance failed.

Leafa Vitale, aged 54, and his wife, Sasa, apparently fled their home in Hawaii in 1987 when an American insurance company became suspicious and refused to pay out on the claim.

A year later, investigators traced the couple to Western Samoa and discovered that Leafa had become a politician.

He had been elected MP for the constituency of Sagaga le Usoga and given the prominent Public Works portfolio.

Once in power, Leafa - a Samoan-born mechanic who lived much of his life in American Samoa, Hawaii and the Middle East - quickly established a reputation as a hot-headed and feared minister with strong ties to the "Samoan Mafia" in Hawaii.

As Public Works Minister, he made his fortune skimming bribe money off companies wanting a Government contract. During his lengthy murder trial the court was told that Leafa has about $2 million stashed in overseas bank accounts.

His co-accused, 68-year-old former Telecommunications Minister Toi Aukuso Cain, was regarded by locals as a lovable rogue. He had sought psychiatric help in New Zealand and Australia for depression and memory loss.

Last week, after the Supreme Court of Samoa's first political assassination trial, Leafa and Toi were found guilty of murdering New Zealand-educated politician Luagalau Levaula Kamu.

They face a mandatory death sentence, which could be commuted to life in jail.

Leafa's son, Alatise Vitale, 34, is already serving a life sentence after confessing that he was the gunman who killed Luagalau at a political function on the evening of July 16 last year.

For many Samoans Leafa's arrest came as no surprise. During his early years in Parliament, he was charged with threatening to shoot the financial controller of the Electric Power Corporation.

By a twist of fate, his acquittal was won by Luagalau, then a top Samoan lawyer and the man whose talent and ministerial portfolio Leafa would one day covet so much it would lead him to plot murder.

In 1994, the Government's then-Chief Auditor, Sua Rimoni Ah Chong, released a report which found deep-seated corruption within half of the cabinet. It named Leafa and Toi.

When the report was leaked to a local newspaper, Leafa was arrested for threatening to kill the editor.

Even on a personal level Leafa was not popular. Despite holding the title of matai, or chief, he was banished in 1997 from his family village at Malie, 15km from Apia, because of a dispute over land titles and because of his attempts to build a fale (house) in front of the village church.

The seeds of the plot by Leafa and Toi to kill Luagalau were almost certainly planted when the new Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, took over from the ailing Tofilau Eti Alesana in late 1998.

Determined to stamp out corruption, and angry at Leafa and Toi's secret attempts to form a breakaway party, Tuilaepa dumped Toi from the cabinet and took away Leafa's lucrative Public Works portfolio.

During the murder trial, evidence was given that everyone wanted the Public Works portfolio. "That's where the money is," said Toi. A contract worth 10 million tala ($6.84 million) was worth a $300,000 "tip."

After the shake-up, Luagalau - elected to Parliament in 1996 and quickly elevated to top portfolios - was given Public Works and instructed to keep an eye on Leafa and Toi.

Less than six months later, Leafa and Toi met under a pulu tree at the Peninsula Nightclub in Apia and hatched a plan to have Luagalau killed.

Frustrated at their waning power, and hating the people they believed had crossed their paths, they drew up a hit-list. It included the Prime Minister, Chief Justice Tiavaasu'e Falefatu Sapoulu and Lands Minister Tuala Sale Tagoloa. Top of the list was Luagalau.

In the first part of a two-pronged assassination attempt, Leafa apparently promised Toi $500,000 to find a hitman and have Luagalau killed. He was given a military-style rifle, which was smuggled into Samoa from the United States in paint cans.

Witnesses saw Toi drive past Luagalau's family home several times with the man initially approached to be the hitman. He was given name suppression at the murder trial.

In court, Toi said he never planned to kill Luagalau, but had a plan to split the cash with the hitman and shoot a tree instead. He said he pulled out of the contract when the cash was not paid upfront.

Frustrated, Leafa apparently called Toi a "chicken-arse" and turned to Alatise, his own eldest son, to carry out the task.

Despite a background as a Sons of Samoa gang member and a cocaine dealer who boasted to police about gunning down a man in Hawaii, Alatise was reluctant.

Leafa bullied him with the words: "You are my eldest son, you must listen to me and walk in my footsteps." Leafa told his son that if he loved him he would do it.

Despite his talk of love, Alatise did not meet his father until he was 13 or 14 years old. As a teenager, Leafa got a village girl pregnant and ran off to the bright lights of Hawaii.

Alatise's mother died when he was a young child, and he was brought up by his maternal grandparents until his father collected him and took him to Hawaii as a teenager.

As the key prosecution witness, Alatise sobbed and said he was torn between his love of God and love for his father. His love for Leafa won.

He was given a pistol and the rifle and agreed to shoot Luagalau at a function to mark the 20th anniversary of the ruling political party, the Human Rights Protection Party, in St Joseph's Hall. He was promised a new car and a house for his wife and three children.

At 8 on the night of the assassination, he poked the gun through the open brickwork of the hall and fired one shot. It hit Luagalau at nearly point-blank range in the back, shattering two ribs and two vertebrae and puncturing the left side of his lung and heart.

Luagalau took his last breath in hospital 20 minutes later with his wife, Maiava Peteru, by his side.

Leafa's work was not over. He was one of three ministers who accompanied the dying man to hospital. Somehow a rumour started that Luagalau had committed suicide, and a nurse was asked to check the pockets of his suit jacket for a gun.

After Luagalau was declared dead, Leafa returned to the party for a quick drink, then met his son at home.

"Is Luagalau dead?" Alatise apparently asked him. "Yes, you got the right spot," his father replied. Leafa told his son to grow a beard and keep his mouth shut.

The morning after the shooting, the ruling party held an emergency caucus meeting. Eager to deflect blame away from himself, Leafa demanded to have all the ports closed. The gunman had obviously entered Samoa from a foreign country, he said.

On the Monday after the shooting, Alatise went to his father to collect his payment. He was given $66 to have the roof of his battered Suzuki car fixed.

Perhaps the most accurate pointer to Leafa's mind-set and feelings for his eldest son came when he was giving evidence in court.

Despite earlier giving police a 46-page statement outlining his father and Toi's involvement, Alatise turned hostile when he took the stand.

For six days, despite fierce questioning from Auckland-based crown prosecutor Kieran Raftery, he remained staunch to protect his father.

On the seventh day he broke down in tears and begged forgiveness. He loved his father, he said, but he had to tell the truth "in the eyes of the Lord."

Sobbing, he told the court his father had asked him to kill Luagalau.

Leafa got the chance to respond during the defence case. Despite asking his son to kill, then lie for him, he showed no remorse.

Of Alatise's sobbing revelation, he said simply: "He is lying ... he is stupid."