Dozens of police and paramedics rush to the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Manukau where Daniel Eliu was shot dead. Video / NZ Herald
A man accused of gunning down a prominent Mongrel Mob leader in front of a South Auckland church late last year has lost his bid to await his murder trial on electronically monitored bail.
The 41-year-old Henderson resident, whose identity remains suppressed, returned to the High Court at Auckland via audio-video feed yesterday as defence lawyer Matthew Goodwin asked Justice Simon Moore for his client’s release.
The Bail Act restricts reporting on what was said during the hearing.
Justice Moore reserved his decision, which was released this afternoon.
The defendant was arrested on December 29 for the alleged murder of Daniel Eliu, boss of the Mongrel Mob’s Auckland-based “Notorious” chapter, just days before Christmas.
A man accused of carrying out a hit on Mongrel Mob boss Daniel Eliu appears in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Police earlier said Eliu appeared to have been “deliberately targeted” as he was fatally gunned down on the morning of December 17 in front of Papatoetoe Seventh-Day Adventist Community Church on Puhinui Rd, near Manukau City Centre.
Eliu, 46, had been attending a graduation for the Grace Foundation, a Christian-based intensive rehabilitation programme catering to those “truly on the margins of New Zealand society” who are seeking to put their criminal pasts behind them. Although he wasn’t graduating himself that day, he had been involved with the programme for about six months.
The group, which holds such events each Saturday, was waiting outside the church about 10am for a Christmas meal when the shooting occurred.
The defendant’s arrest came one day after the raucous but non-violent funeral for Eliu, who was also known as Sa-Dan Notorious. The send-off included motorcycle revving, haka, barking and chants of “Sieg f***ing heil” as his casket was carried to his grave by patched Mongrel Mob members.
Eliu had been the subject of media attention multiple times prior to his death due to his own run-ins with the law.
His most high-profile crime, for which he was sentenced to 11 years in prison, involved a 2006 knife attack and revenge kidnapping of a man whom Eliu suspected had “narked” on a gang-affiliated friend of his — allegedly telling police about the friend’s possession of a loaded pistol.
Using a boxcutter, Eliu slashed the victim’s face from his jaw to his hairline, which the Court of Appeal would later describe as “a particularly bad crime of its kind”.
Mongrel Mob member Daniel Eliu was shot dead in Manukau. Photo / File
He was convicted of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
A trial date for the man accused of killing Eliu has been set for May 2024.
