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Hardeep Sandhu was sentenced to time served for his role in a 2020 murder plot.
Sandhu rammed Harnek Singh’s vehicle, enabling attackers to stab the controversial radio host over 40 times.
Sandhu pleaded guilty to attempted murder but then recanted, claiming he only expected a religious debate, not a stabbing.
He sought a discharge without conviction, arguing a conviction would jeopardise his immigration status.
Hardeep Singh Sandhu, 31, was the last remaining defendant connected to the unusual December 2020 murder plot – rare in New Zealand not only for its extreme violence but for the religious fanaticism that fuelled it.
The victim, Harnek Singh, is a fellow Sikh who hosts a radio show out of a temple in Papatoetoe. Although the terrestrial range of the station is small, his broadcasts and shorter clips posted to YouTube have garnered almost 140 million views and half a million subscribers, mostly from overseas.
Singh was returning home to his wife and child that night after a marathon four-hour broadcast when Sandhu, trailing in a Toyota Hiace, rammed the vehicle at the entrance to a Wattle Downs property in South Auckland.
Auckland radio host Harnek Singh, 53, was stabbed in his driveway in Wattle Downs, South Auckland. Photo / Supplied
Phone records show that days earlier Sandhu had discussed purchasing a tracking device to plant under Singh’s vehicle and he had researched the radio host’s home using the Street View function on Google Maps.
Realising something wasn’t right and thinking quickly, Singh honked his car horn repeatedly, signalling for help, as the three others approached his disabled vehicle with a cache of bats and knives that had been provided by East Tāmaki temple leader Gurinderpal Brar, a fierce critic of his political and religious views.
“The three attackers broke the driver’s side window and began stabbing the complainant all over his upper body, inflicting approximately 40 stab wounds and cuts to his arms, chest, neck and head area,” state the summary of facts that Sandhu agreed to.
“The attack stopped when one of the attackers accidentally cut another attacker’s hand, causing him to drop his knife.
“At that point the three attackers left the scene in their [separate] vehicle, presuming the complainant to be dead or dying.”
Sandhu, meanwhile, had already left in his van and did not participate in or witness the stabbing, according to the same court documents.
Harnek Singh received about 40 stab wounds in the December 2020 attack. Photo / Supplied
Paramedics who attended to Singh did not expect him to survive the attack, which required hundreds of stitches and years of surgeries. But he did, and in 2023 the radio host walked into the High Court at Auckland and testified against Brar and several other men implicated in the plot.
By that point, Sandhu had recently pleaded guilty to attempted murder so he was not on trial and did not see the radio host’s appearance. But it would turn out he was only at the midway point of what would be a circuitous route to his eventual sentencing.
Guilty, not guilty, repeat
By the time he appeared before Justice Mathew Downs this week for sentencing, Sandhu had managed a rare feat in the justice system – he persuaded authorities to allow him to rescind his prior guilty plea.
The case, already considered old by the time his co-defendants went to trial due to Covid delays, would meander through the court system for another year and a half as his regret over the guilty plea resulted in a series of follow-up hearings.
Sandhu insisted his guilty plea was in error because he never actually knew there was a plot to kill the radio host.
“You believed Mr Singh was to be beaten rather than killed,” Justice Downs said. “But, you understood Mr Singh would be followed, rammed off the road, then attacked.”
Emergency services who attended to Harnek Singh did not expect him to survive the attack outside his home. Photo / Hayden Woodward
The judge described the sequence of events for Sandhu’s dealings with the justice system as “unusual” and “indeed a little messy”.
After he was allowed to vacate his guilty plea last April, Sandhu proposed through his lawyer that he be allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of injuring with intent to injure rather than waiting for a new jury trial for attempted murder.
The original charge carries a maximum possible sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment, while injuring with intent to injure is punishable by up to five years. Crown prosecutor Natalie Walker agreed to the proposal, describing the decision as “pragmatic” given that all other co-defendants had already been tried or sentenced.
But he again seemed reluctant to admit even his lesser role, suggesting he only tagged along because he expected there to be a religious debate with Singh.
“You told the probation officer who prepared your pre-sentence report that you did not appreciate violence was to be used against Mr Singh,” Justice Downs said. “That observation is inconsistent with the charge to which you have pleaded guilty, and the agreed summary of facts in relation to the charge.
“Similarly, you told the author of your extensive cultural report you never felt resentment or hatred towards the victim, and you would never harm him even if you disagreed with him. These observations are difficult to reconcile with your participation in a plot to attack Mr Singh and your role in that attack in ramming his car.
“You say in your primary affidavit that you drove into the victim’s car because you saw another car approaching yours at speed from behind.”
To that, the judge read aloud a contradictory section of the summary of facts that Sandhu had agreed to: “The defendant’s role was to ram his car into the complainant’s vehicle in order to immobilise it for the attack to take place.”
Nevertheless, Sandhu did not try to vacate his second guilty plea.
Deportation risk?
Given what was agreed to be Sandhu’s lesser culpability than his co-defendants, lawyer Greg Bradford asked the judge for a discharge without conviction for his client. To receive such an outcome, a judge has to determine that the consequences of a conviction would be “out of all proportion to the gravity of the offending”.
Bradford argued a conviction would make it more difficult for his client to find a job and could result in deportation. If returned to India, which he left in 2015, Sandhu could be at risk of violence, the lawyer said. Sandhu would be separated from his pregnant wife in New Zealand, he said.
The Crown opposed the proposal, pointing out that Sandhu was already considered an overstayer.
The judge dismissed arguments that Sandhu would be in danger if returned to India, describing them as speculative. He also noted that separation from his wife was not mandatory as she could move to India too if he was deported.
“Whether she would want that is another matter,” he said.
The judge said he was willing to “proceed on the assumption a conviction would significantly heighten the risk of your deportation”. But that ultimately didn’t matter, he said, because such an outcome would not be grossly disproportionate to the offence.
“The offending was premeditated; motivated by religious fanaticism; and involved multiple assailants,” Justice Downs said. “You knew appreciable violence would be administered. You played an important role in ramming Mr Singh’s car so your co-defendants could attack him.
“You were a willing party to serious, premeditated violence.”
Gurinderpal Brar (left) and Harnek Singh were both Auckland residents who had considerable influence within the local and international Sikh community. Brar was convicted of a plot to murder Singh.
Given that level of seriousness, the judge said he could also not entertain a request for a non-custodial sentence.
With a starting point of three and a half years, the end sentence was 11 months after reductions were applied for his background and indoctrination under the convicted mastermind of the plot, his prior good character, his guilty plea and the time he had already spent on electronically monitored bail – including nearly two years when he was under 24-hour curfew.
“But that is not quite the end of the story,” the judge said, noting that Sandhu also spent more than 13 months in custody while awaiting trial in the four years that had elapsed since his arrest.
“That time will be applied against your prison sentence,“ Justice Downs said as the hearing concluded. “A term of 11 months would mean you face no further penalty today beyond perhaps the potential consequences of conviction.”
Brar was sentenced in November 2023 to 13 and a half years’ imprisonment, just six months shy of the 14-year max for attempted murder. He would have received the maximum sentence had he not been owed a six-month credit for the time he spent on electronically monitored bail awaiting trial, Justice Mark Woolford said at the time.
Several months later, a cumulative six-month prison term was added to the sentence after Brar pleaded guilty in Manukau District Court to assaulting several parishioners.
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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