Radio host attempted murder trial: Man accused of orchestrating hit on Harnek Singh gave two police interviews

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

Just weeks after popular but controversial radio host Harnek Singh was ambushed and stabbed multiple times by a group of strangers in the driveway of his South Auckland home, the man accused of orchestrating the attempted murder arranged to have the radio host’s blood-soaked and battered ute - which had been written off by insurers - bought at auction.

The defendant, who has name suppression, claimed in a police interview that it was a coincidence. Prosecutors suggest it was a trophy.

The “curious piece of evidence”, as prosecutors have described it, was one of the latest topics considered by jurors today and yesterday at the High Court at Auckland trial, which is now in its fourth week.

During two police interviews, in January and November 2021, the defendant with name suppression made no secret of his dislike of the radio host.

“Tell me about Harnek Singh,” Detective Andrew Wright asked the suspect during the first interview, which occurred just one month after the December 23, 2020, attack on Harnek Singh that left him fighting for his life with dozens of stab wounds.

“He’s saying, he’s doing bullshit to all religion,” the man responded, suggesting that the radio host outraged not just fellow Sikhs like himself but people of all religious and political persuasions.

Harnek Singh was ambushed in his driveway and stabbed dozens of times.

The man acknowledged he wouldn’t listen to Harnek Singh’s hours-long broadcasts, which he recorded several days a week from a Sihk temple in Papatoetoe. But the condensed clips of the broadcasts the suspect had found on social media were enough to convince him the radio host was saying “so many bad things”, he said.

“Everyone feels like he’s no good,” he told the detective.

Earlier in the trial, victim Harnek Singh described how his audience has grown substantially over the years far beyond the limited reach of his live radio broadcasts - including hundreds of thousands of people who subscribe to him on YouTube, where his broadcasts are shared with a mostly international audience. He acknowledged that he has also had some very passionate critics, most of whom espouse a more orthodox view of Sikhism than his own liberal views.

All five of the defendants in the current trial fall in the more orthodox camp, prosecutors have suggested.

Prosecutors allege seven men in total committed attempted murder by either planning the attack, directly participating in it or offering aid and encouragement. Three have pleaded guilty.

Those who 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; and the man with name suppression alleged to have organised the attempted hit and recruited the participants.

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

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 and is also on trial.

In his second interview with police, the man with name suppression was asked about having bought the radio host’s red ute - its personalised number plate matching the name of his station - for $23,000 in an online auction.

It wasn’t until he later saw the vehicle in person - noticing the broken glass and the blood - that he realised who its former owner was, the man told police. His only intent was to fix it up and use it for hauling things, he said.

But the detective noted that while executing a search warrant that day, they had found the vehicle under a tarpaulin and still in disrepair. Car-wrecking business owner Kuldip Singh told jurors yesterday that he helped the defendant buy the ute. The defendant wanted that vehicle specifically, he said.

Jobanpreet Singh is on trial in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Jason Oxenham

The detective also told the suspect during the videotaped interview about another witness who had told police he had been approached by the defendant a week before the attack in an attempt to recruit him for the assassination attempt.

“You started talking to him about Harnek and he understood that you wanted to kill him,” the detective said, referring to witness Baljinder Singh. “You told him that you had a plan and that you were gonna use a stolen vehicle to follow Harnek home from his work or his temple.

“The stolen vehicle would run Harnek off the road, you would provide a motorbike and a handgun and one of the persons on the motorbike would pull up and shoot Harnek dead.”

The defendant strongly disagreed with the statement.

“Total 100, 101 per cent false,” he responded. “That’s totally lying.”

In addition to playing the police interview, the Crown called another witness this week who said the man with name suppression often advocated for violent retribution even if he didn’t mention Harnek Singh by name.

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

“He said, like, we can go to any extreme if someone is against Sikhism,” Gurpreet Singh recalled.

Gurpreet Singh said he was never approached about the attack itself, but after it happened the man with name suppression approached him and suggested he had been “chosen by God” to do something for their faith: dispose of a white Toyota Hiace van.

Authorities have alleged it was the same van that was used to ram the radio host’s ute in the lead-up to his attack.

Gurpreet Singh said he took the van to a mechanic’s shop in Huntly.

“We just cut it in pieces and threw it in different places,” he said, explaining that some of the parts went in rubbish bins while others were taken to a farm in Cambridge.

Lawyer Dale Dufty, who represents the man with name suppression, suggested during cross-examination that the witness was lying because he didn’t like the defendant.

“No I’m telling the truth,” the man responded, adding a short time later: “No, I like him.”

The trial is set to continue tomorrow before Justice Mark Wooford 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.