Gang trio go on trial for murder

Extra security staff, some with metal detectors, were on duty at the High Court at Wellington today as three Mongrel Mob members went on trial for the murder of a Black Power gang member in Wairoa in 2003.

Justice Judith Potter lifted interim name suppression on the three accused "in the interests of open justice".

Black Power member Henry William Waihape, 29, was shot dead on November 27, 2003, as he travelled in a van with other gang affiliates from Wairoa to Frasertown on the North Island's East Coast.

The shooting followed a massive brawl between 70 members of the two gangs outside the Wairoa courthouse earlier that day.

Rangi Wainohu Tamati, 44, of Wairoa, Kenneth Andre Te Kahu, 33, of Wairoa, and Jeremy Kevin Wilfred Hatley, 25, of Napier, have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

The trial before a jury of three women and nine men is expected to take up to two weeks.

- NZPA