Jobanpreet Singh is on trial in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Jobanpreet Singh is on trial in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Jason Oxenham
On the night that controversial radio host Harnek Singh was ambushed in the driveway of his Auckland home and stabbed repeatedly by a group of alleged religious and political zealots, Jobanpreet Singh - a young overstayer trying to keep his head low - said his own evening lacked any such drama.
It involved grocery shopping, a late dinner at home with roommates and lights out well before midnight so he could get up early the next morning for prayers, he told jurors this week over the four days he spent in the witness box in the High Court at Auckland, insisting he knew nothing about the murder attempt.
But during tense cross-examination, prosecutors accused the 27-year-old of lying about his whereabouts, altering exhibits to fit his alibi and convincing friends to perjure themselves in an effort to dilute what might be seen as otherwise-damning evidence. That evidence included a former co-defendant turned star witness who said he and Jobanpreet Singh attacked the radio host together, as well as WhatsApp messages to his girlfriend the next morning in which he seemed to describe the attack in first person.
“You hit Harnek’s vehicle with bats to break the windows,” prosecutor Luke Radich suggested today as his lengthy cross-examination culminated. “When the driver’s side window was broken, you stabbed Harnek.”
Speaking through a Punjabi interpreter, the defendant adamantly disagreed.
Radio host Harnek Singh was ambushed and stabbed in the driveway of his Wattle Downs home.
Despite suffering dozens of stab wounds, Harnek Singh managed to survive the attack, which took place around 10.30pm on Dec 23, 2020, as he was returning home from another marathon talkback radio session. Although his live broadcasts had a relatively small reach to radio listeners near the Papatoetoe temple where his studio was located, they garnered a massive audience overseas thanks to social media and YouTube, where he has nearly half a million subscribers.
His more progressive take on Sikhism and his views about Indian politics had clearly done well for his audience growth, but they also garnered him plenty of passionate critics, the victim acknowledged at the outset of the trial, which began one month ago and is expected to last one more week.
Prosecutors initially accused Jobanpreet Singh and six others of either participating in the attack directly, planning it or aiding and encouraging the assassination attempt. 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.
Three men have pleaded guilty.
The trial started with the five remaining defendants sitting in the dock of the justice centre’s largest courtroom - including Jobanpreet Singh and Sukpreet Singh, as well as a man with name suppression who is accused of having orchestrated the attack. But two others - Jagraj Singh and Gurbinder Singh, who were accused of following the radio host in a Toyota Prius, offering encouragement or support to the attackers - were released late last week after prosecutors finished presenting evidence.
“As a result of a legal ruling I made, they are taking no further part in the trial,” Justice Mark Woolford told jurors on Monday as he explained their absence in brief, vague terms. “They are not here and you will not be asked for a verdict.”
Appearing at the High Court at Auckland are co-defendants (from left) Jobanpreet Singh, a man with name suppression, Gurbinder Singh, Sukhpreet Singh and Jagraj Singh. Prosecutors said the men are linked to the attempted murder of radio host Harnek Singh. Photo / Jason Oxenham.
Jobanpreet Singh began and ended his lengthy testimony on similar notes this week - shedding tears as jurors were told about the deaths of his parents and his grandmother.
Born in India, he lost his father when he was 2 years old and his mother when he was 10, defence lawyer Peter Kaye said during his opening address, describing his client as a good student despite his life setbacks who was known in school and at temple for his angelic singing voice. He left his grandparents and came to New Zealand on a student visa at age 18 in 2015, but a series of school closings and financial setbacks led to him being an overstayer by the time of the 2020 attack.
“He was depressed. He often stayed home,” Kaye told jurors.
He noted that Jaspal Singh, one of the witnesses who has pleaded guilty to stabbing the radio host, said Jobanpreet Singh was with him during the attack but gave “absolutely no detail”.
“Simply put, that evidence is untrue,” Kaye said. “It’s a total lie and ... a frame-up.
“...He absolutely played no part whatsoever.”
Jobanpreet Singh described himself in the witness box as having been baptised but “not that religious”. He knew of the radio host, as most people in the community did, but he had no strong feelings one way or the other regarding the man’s approach to Sikhism, he told defence lawyer Elizabeth Gresson.
But WhatsApp messages between him and his then-secret girlfriend on the morning after the attack - translated from Punjabi - paint a different picture, prosecutors suggested.
“Sale (an abusive word for a person in Punjabi) got the surgery done. He is safe,” the girlfriend wrote, to which the defendant allegedly replied: “He got stabbed with knives all across his neck. We never thought that he will be safe.”
Five minutes later, he allegedly added: “Firstly, these (sic) was one car. Then we crossed in front of three cars. Then straight to the motorway.”
When the WhatsApp conversation resumed late that night, the defendant’s girlfriend expressed sympathy for the radio host’s “innocent wife” and Jobanpreet Singh appeared to chastise her for it.
“We might let his son alive with mercy but won’t let his wife alive, she is a bitch,” he said, according to the English translation provided to jurors.
The next morning, Christmas Day, the two were chatting again.
“Brother was saying that when everyone will go to his funeral we will burn his house down,” he allegedly told the woman.
Police investigate the scene in December 2020 where Auckland radio host Harnek Singh was ambushed and nearly killed in a stabbing attack. Photo / Hayden Woodward
In the witness box, Jobanpreet Singh said some of the statements had been mistranslated or mischaracterized - especially the parts in which he is alleged to have said “we” in describing the events.
“We were more talking in general about the community. Everyone was discussing about this news,” he said, adding that he called the radio host’s wife a “bitch” only because he heard a rumour she was behind the attack.
The defence gave jurors screenshots of two Facebook posts with news of the attack that appeared to be dated the morning of the first conversation.
But the Crown later suggested during cross-examination that Jobanpreet Singh knew too many details about the attack the next morning, well before they were revealed in the media. Prosecutors also pulled up a Facebook post submitted by the defence and showed how the time zone had been manipulated - making it appear in the screenshot as if it was posted at 7.37am that morning when in reality it was posted at 4.37pm.
“I’m going to suggest something quite serious about this - that you faked the time,” Radich said.
Jobanpreet Singh responded that he didn’t know much about technical stuff but he believed it was from the morning. Even if he was mistaken, he said, he had learned details of the attack from a roommate that morning and on other social media platforms.
Radich and the defendant also sparred over who had Jobanpreet Singh’s phone, which according to polling data was in the vicinity of the radio host’s home and temple at the time of the attack rather than the defendant’s home. Jobanpreet Singh explained it was actually a shared phone and friend Sarvjeet Sidhu, who has pleaded guilty to participating in the attack, had taken the device on the afternoon before the attack.
If that was the case, Radich asked, why do phone records show calls between his phone and Sidhu’s phone that night? Wouldn’t that mean that Sidhu was calling himself? He also pointed to WhatsApp messages between the two phones two hours before the attack in which Sidhu addressed someone by the name of “Jobni”.
Jobanpreet Singh said he didn’t know who Sidhu had given the phone to and he didn’t know who Jobni was. But Radich said a detective has gone through previous messages between the two and found 35 prior occasions in which Sidhu had referred to Jobanpreet Singh as “Jobni”.
Sukhpreet Singh is on trial in the High Court at Auckland, accused of being an accessory to attempted murder after the fact. Prosecutors have said he welcomed two men into his home after they stabbed radio host Harnek Singh. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Radich pointed to several alleged inconsistencies with the defendant’s police interview and what he said in the witness box, including a portion of the interview in which he seemed to confirm that he was “Jobni”. But the defendant said he felt intimidated by police at that point, which caused him to agree to things automatically without closely considering the truthfulness.
“The whole interview was conducted in confusion and in haste,” he said repeatedly. “I was not able to understand anything.”
Radich at one point responded: “This is not a case of you being confused. This is a case of you not being able to get your story straight.”
As for former co-defendant Jaspal Singh - the man who pleaded guilty and placed Jobanpreet Singh at the scene of the attack - the defendant said it was all an elaborate lie Jaspal Singh had spun in an effort to protect a friend who was actually there.
“I want to go back to my guardians,” he said as his testimony concluded, his voice quivering and tears starting to form as he recounted how his grandmother was unable to speak or eat for months after learning of his arrest.
“I’m not involved in anything. I’ve never been involved in anything with anyone.”
Jobanpreet Singh’s lawyer also called to the witness stand as alibi witnesses two roommates who recounted spending the evening with the defendant on the night of the attack. Prosecutors especially focused on the account of Navpreet Singh, who initially declined to speak with police but provided a statement for the defence two weeks ago.
In it, he claimed to have taken Jobanpreet Singh with him earlier that evening as he went to visit a friend. The two then went to two grocery stores together around 9pm, he said, before returning home and having a shared dinner with other roommates around 10.30 - the same time the radio host was under attack.
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
Radich presented wi-fi login data from the witness’ phone suggesting he was at a temple - not visiting a friend or at a grocery store - when he claimed to be. Radich also revealed that police had recently been in contact with the friend Navpreet Singh claimed to have been visiting that night. The man, who now lives in Australia, said he had never met Navpreet Singh outside of work and didn’t see him on the night in question.
Radich then asked Navpreet Singh repeatedly if he had been in contact with the other man recently, which the witness repeatedly denied until Radich indicated he had Facebook Messenger records indicating otherwise from just the night before.
“Were you trying to intimidate him?” Radich asked the witness.
“No,” he responded. “I just sent him a message to ask how he was doing.”
“You’re saying it was just a coincidence?” Radich asked with a tone of incredulity.
“Yes,” he responded.
The witness insisted that he and Jobanpreet Singh had met with the other man that night. If the other man says otherwise, he is either mistaken or lying, he said.
“I suggest to you it is you who are lying, Navpreet,” Radich replied, suggesting a short while later: “You’ve come to court today to try to help your friend Jobanpreet ... and in doing so you’ve given false evidence.”
“No,” the witness replied, as the questioning ended.
The defence is expected to continue calling witnesses when the trial resumes tomorrow afternoon.
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.
