Jagraj Singh is on trial in the High Court at Auckland, accused of aiding or encouraging the attempted murder of radio host Harnek Singh. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Jagraj Singh is on trial in the High Court at Auckland, accused of aiding or encouraging the attempted murder of radio host Harnek Singh. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Two days before controversial international radio celebrity Harnek Singh was ambushed and stabbed repeatedly in the driveway of his South Auckland home, two men who would later be accused of being present during the near-fatal attack were discussing GPS tracking devices.
Jagraj Singh, one of four men currently on trial for attempted murder in the High Court at Auckland, was alleged to be one of them. The other was Hardeep Singh Sandhu, who is not on trial only because he pleaded guilty last month.
During an hours-long interview that was played for jurors today, Detective Constable Karan Singh explained to Jagraj Singh that police had obtained telecommunications data from both men, including their text exchanges that night.
In the exchange, the detective explained, the other man had sent Jagraj Singh a link for a Miracle Logic GL300 GPS tracker.
“At the same time he’s texted you in Punjabi. ... I’ll tell you the English version,” the detective told the suspect. “I believe it says, ‘We can keep this hidden underneath his car.’”
Both men were bilingual, but the detective asked questions in English and Jagraj Singh answered in Punjabi, with an interpreter sitting between them.
“Oh God,” the defendant said when told of the GPS device. “I have no idea what that is.”
Auckland radio host Harnek Singh was stabbed in his driveway in Wattle Downs in December 2020.
Prosecutors allege seven men in total committed attempted murder by either planning the December 2020 attack, directly participating in it or offering aid and encouragement - targeting the radio host because of his liberal Sikh ideology, which had garnered him hundreds of thousands of listeners but also plenty of fierce critics.
Harnek Singh suffered dozens of stab wounds but miraculously survived after his red ute was rammed as he pulled into the driveway of his Wattle Downs home two days before Christmas.
Three of the seven accused men have pleaded guilty: Jaspal Singh, who spent several days in the witness box earlier in the trial; Sarvjeet Sidhu and Hardeep Singh Sandhu, who sent the text.
The remaining defendants, all of whom have pleaded not guilty, include Jobanpreet Singh, who is accused of directly participating in the attack; Jagraj Singh and Gurbinder Singh, who allegedly followed the radio host in a Toyota Prius, offering encouragement or support to the attackers; a man with name suppression alleged to have orchestrated the attempted hit; and Sukhpreet Singh. An eighth man - Sukhpreet Singh, who allegedly welcomed two of the bloody attackers into his home to clean up after the incident - has been charged with being an accessory after the fact.
Gurbinder Singh (left) and Sukhpreet Singh are two of the five men on trial in the High Court at Auckland in relation to the alleged attempted murder of radio host Harnek Singh. Photo / Jason Oxenham
“Why did he text this to you?” Detective Karan Singh asked Jagrah Singh of the GPS device link in the video that was played for jurors today.
“I don’t know, you can only ask him,” Jagraj Singh replied through the interpreter. “I don’t know. I don’t remember, I don’t remember why I would have texted.”
The detective replied: “What car are you gonna put it in?”
The defendant repeated that he didn’t remember anything about it.
The detective then interpreted the next message from Hardeep Singh Sandhu to mean: “I’ll arrange this.”
Jobanpreet Singh is on trial in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Jason Oxenham
“He would know what he’s doing it for,” the suspect said. “All these texts I can’t remember, I can’t tell you anything. Why or how I don’t know. I don’t remember anything.”
Hardeep Singh Sandhu then asked the defendant via text, “What’s his home address ... 26 or 26A?” and Jagraj Singh replied that it was number 24, the detective noted.
Although no names were used in the texts, prosecutors have pointed out that the victim’s address started with “24a”.
“I need to stay quiet about that cos I don’t know anything about it,” Jagraj Singh replied.
The detective told Jagraj Singh that police had interviewed Hardeep Sandhu earlier in the day and he had said it was Jagrag Singh’s idea to plant to GPS device.
“I don’t know, I don’t remember anything,” he replied.
The interview ended a short time later.
Police investigate the stabbing of Auckland radio host Harnek Singh in Wattle Downs in December 2020. Photo / Hayden Woodward
“Okay, I believe you are directly involved in the attempted murder of [Harnek] Singh,” the detective bluntly said. “We have GPS data that I’ve told you about today and text data between Hardeep Sandhu and you planning this.
The detective could do as he wished, the suspect responded.
“I don’t know anything about anything,” he said.
A man with name suppression is on trial in the High Court at Auckland, accused of orchestrating the attempted murder of radio host Harnek Singh. Photo / Jason Oxenham
During cross-examination of the detective, defence lawyer Greg Bradford noted that his client had gone to two different police stations prior to the interview “inquiring why police wanted to speak to him”.
“I think he was well aware of why police would want to speak to him,” the detective replied.
The defence also suggested that there might have been issues with the way the interview was translated, although the detective disagreed with that as well. Between both of them speaking English and Punjabi, his assessment of the situation was that their understanding of each other was clear, he replied.
The trial is set to continue tomorrow before Justice Mark Woolford and the jury.
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.
