Manurewa resident Dariush Talagi stared aheadin the High Court at Auckland dock as the jury announced its verdict after four hours of deliberation. Today is his 26th birthday.
Prosecutors said Talagi never should have had a gun on him when he fired four shots on the night of August 3, 2023. The first two wounded Jarome Alexander, who had been kicking him at the time.
CCTV footage - played repeatedly for jurors over the week-and-a-half trial - then showed Talagi getting up from the beating and pulling his jacket over his head before “striding” over to Sione Tuuholoaki and firing into the back of his head. Tuuholoaki, who had pinned down the defendant’s brother-in-law but had not thrown punches, would not have seen Talagi coming.
A fourth shot was fired in the direction of another member of the group, Jekamiah Ah-Fook who had initiated the confrontation by yelling lewd remarks at Talagi’s pregnant partner. Talagi insisted it was a warning shot. Prosecutors said the gun was clearly aimed at the other man’s head but he missed.
In addition to the murder charge, Talagi was found guilty of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm for the shots fired at Alexander.
Dariush Talagi was on trial for murder in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Supplied
“The five men in Mr Tuuholoaki‘s group were very unwise that night,” Crown prosecutor Alysha McClintock conceded to jurors during her closing address this week.
They shouldn’t have yelled out insults and they shouldn’t have continued to try to challenge Talagi to a “clean one-on-one” fight after the defendant flashed his gun, she said. But none of those bad decisions should have resulted in gunfire, she said.
“It was not a price that needed to be paid [for the] salty, drunken, macho things they said,” the prosecutor argued, describing the footage as showing “retribution and payback” rather than self-defence.
She suggested that Talagi baited the men into a fight after the insult, fearless because he knew he had the “ultimate equaliser” - a gun. Even if jurors disagreed and thought there was an element of self-defence, he should still be found guilty of murder, she said, because “there isn’t a clearer example of excessive force than this case”.
A CCTV still shows Dariush Talagi approaching Jekamiah Ah-Fook, whose fists are raised, and Sione Tuuholoaki while reaching for a bag that contained a gun. The still was entered into evidence at Talagi's murder trial. Photo / Supplied
“Mr Talagi incited a fistfight knowing he had a gun and then he used the gun to win the fight,” she said.
But it shouldn’t be called a “fight” when Talagi didn’t throw a single punch, defence lawyer Jo Scott countered during her closing address, describing the interaction instead as a one-sided, co-ordinated “pack attack” by a group of “imposing and dangerous” young men seeking to “smash the living daylights” out of a stranger “effectively for their own entertainment”.
“Why would anyone do this?” she asked. “They were excited by it. They like the power of it and the violence of it.”
Even if multiple men in the group suggested a one-on-one fight, the idea of that ever taking place that night - with all of them at one point in Talagi’s face - was “fanciful”, Scott said.
Sione Tuuholoaki was fatally shot on Auckland's Queen St. Photo / Supplied
“Mr Talagi knows exactly what they want to do to him,” she said. “The die is cast. Mr Talagi doesn’t have a choice.
“He knows he’s being surrounded. They were never going to let him get away.”
The footage shows that Ah-Fook, the person whose mates outed as having yelled the insults, threw the first punch as Talagi was turned away. Talagi was immediately thrown to the ground and pummelled by Ah-Fook and Alexander.
While Talagi was taking the beating, brother-in-law Bobby Boon-Harris arrived on the scene on a scooter. Boon-Harris suffered a rugby injury in 2018 that left him partially paralysed and with an off-balance gait. Talagi’s lawyer described him as looking “bewildered and defenceless”, with his arms by his side, before he was knocked to the ground with “a mighty king hit” and repeatedly pummelled as well.
A CCTV still entered into evidence at Dariush Talagi's murder trial showed him getting pummelled by a group of strangers. Two of the strangers were shot, one fatally. Photo / Supplied
The person who threw the coward punch, Junior Pua, had been scheduled to give evidence at the trial but went overseas after he was summonsed, jurors were told. Neither he nor anyone else in his group were charged with any offences.
“Think about what you would do in that situation,” she said. “You’re being surrounded by three people and your partner’s brother, who you know has a serious disability, is being smashed right beside you. Your pregnant fiance is right behind you.
“You’d do whatever you could.”
Talagi knew that any further head injury to Boon-Harris could result in death, she said, reminding jurors that her client had been punched and kicked to the head before firing the fatal shot at Tuuholoaki.
“How clearly would any of us be thinking when you finally stagger to your feet?” she asked. “You don’t have time to look around and evaluate the situation. He sees the threat as very much alive.
“And in the split second, Mr Talagi knows he must protect Mr Boon-Harris. In that split second, Mr Talagi acts on pure instinct. Mr Talagi genuinely thought Mr Boon-Harris would be killed. The only thing he could do was shoot.”
Electric scooters abandoned on lower Queen St following the shooting incident at 11.30pm on August 3, 2023. Photo / Hayden Woodward
She disregarded her client’s own testimony last week that he couldn’t remember the shooting and didn’t realise what he had done until seeing footage on Facebook the next day. It’s not unusual for people to forget traumatic events that occurred in a state of extreme stress, she said.
“Mr Talagi was very stupid to be carrying a pistol or a gun around town - that goes without saying,” she said. “It was illegal and was dangerous.”
But, she added, the fact that he had one doesn’t take away his right to defend himself and those he loved. Talagi has no prior convictions for violence, firearms or dishonesty offending, his lawyer noted.
“This was a reasonable response, albeit a tragic one,” she said.
But Talagi’s memory loss was not the only thing the Crown took issue with regarding his trip to the witness box.
A CCTV still entered into evidence at Dariush Talagi's murder trial show a confrontation that unfolded on Auckland Central's Queen St on the night of August 3, 2023. Photo / Supplied
He said the gun belonged to someone who had left it at his house days earlier and he only had it that night because he planned to drop it by at the man’s house after a night out in the city centre. He said he thought the gun was a starter pistol or a toy and had no idea it was lethal. He only carried it on him that night, he said, because he was afraid his “flash” SUV might be burgled.
The Crown labelled the assertions as awkward lies cooked up by the defendant in a strained effort to “weave” his way around the “unassailable” facts provided by the CCTV footage. McClintock compared him to a toddler caught with jelly on his face and responding with nonsensical excuses.
The defendant also said he never heard the insults to his partner and so wasn’t angry when he approached the group. That’s simply not credible when so many other witnesses recalled the insult, McClintock said.
He was then seen on CCTV footage reaching for the bag with his gun in it and smiling as he seemed to exchange words with the man who had yelled the insult.
A CCTV still entered into evidence at Dariush Talagi's murder trial shows the defendant firing his pistol at a third man moments after shooting Sione Tuuholoaki in the head. Photo / Supplied
Talagi said he was reaching for the bag to see if he had dropped any cigarettes, but the Crown pointed out there were no cigarette packages found at the scene. He said the smile was intended to put the strangers at ease when he realised they weren’t hailing him out of friendliness but the Crown and all other witnesses described it as menacing and confrontational.
She had the jurors watch the video a final time during her closing address but made sure they knew they could watch it as many times as they wanted while deliberating. She reminded them of evidence by a pathologist that the gun would have been about 1cm from Tuuholoaki‘s head when fired.
Murder convict Dariush Talagi was filmed fleeing the scene on a scooter shortly after shooting Sione Tuuholoaki in the head on Auckland Central's Queen St. Photo / Supplied
“We know what he did. We can see what he did,” she said. “It’s all there on the footage. He’s in complete and utter control.”
Justice Mathew set down a sentencing date for April.
After the verdict was announced, the judge approved requests from the Herald and Stuff to publish some stills from the CCTV footage. The requests had been opposed by the defence and the Crown but media representatives said they would help the public to understand what was a fast-moving situation.
“I am mindful of the concerns expressed in argument that the imagery may be misused, including to glorify violence,” Justice Downs said. “It is always possible material in court may be used for a purpose other than in which it was tendered to the court.
“However, open reporting is a paramount principle in our system. Relatedly, the closed-circuit television footage and the resulting stills formed important pieces of evidence in this case. There can be little doubt the swiftness of the jury’s verdicts reflect the importance of that evidence.”
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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