Man jailed for fatal car boot kidnapping fails to have his conviction overturned

Luigi Havea (front row, left) has appealed against his conviction for his part in a fatal car boot kidnapping. His co-defendants, pictured here at the 2017 High Court sentencing, are Masi Vaifale (next to Havea), Joseph Benjamin Haurua, Sen Lek Liev (back row, left), Sodarith Sao and Aphichart Korhomklang. Photo / Doug Sherring

After being jailed for his part in the fatal car boot kidnapping of a Thai drug queen, Luigi Havea’s family home was burned down and he was beaten and stabbed by gang members for being a “snitch”.

It was his fear of retribution that saw him delay his bid to overturn his sentence until nearly three years after it was handed down.

After the Court of Appeal heard his case in late September, the reserved decision was delivered today, dismissing his appeal.

Havea was a close associate of the Head Hunters gang’s “ghost unit” hired to provide muscle for the March 2016 kidnap of Jindarat Prutsiriporn, who died trying to escape from her kidnappers.

He, along with four co-defendants, was found guilty of kidnapping and manslaughter after a 10-week trial. Havea did not give or call evidence at his own trial, and was sentenced to jail for 10 years and three months in 2017.

Nearly three years later, he tried to overturn his conviction, saying there had been a miscarriage of justice due to the claimed failings of his lawyer at trial.

At his appeal, in which he was allowed by the court to advance out of time, Havea said the delay was because he feared retribution from gang members in jail.

He said the trial had attracted the attention of gang members in prison. During the trial, some paperwork went missing from his cell, including pictures of him wearing a gang patch that did not belong to him, he told the court.

Havea claimed these images angered members of the gang and he knew they would seek retribution. He feared for his and his family’s safety, he said.

His family home was burned down after his trial, he told the court, and he was beaten up three times and stabbed with a shank by gang members who called him a snitch.

The violence only stopped when he moved to Waikeria Prison, where he was able to consider an appeal and file it six months after his transfer.

Jindarat Prutsiriporn died trying to escape from her kidnappers after being held hostage for 22 hours. Photo / Supplied

In arguing to have his conviction quashed, Havea said he did not remember whether he personally wanted to give evidence, but said he would have done so if his lawyer at the time, Michael Kan, had told him to.

In contrast, Kan said Havea firmly refused to give evidence throughout the trial because the “gang code” forbade him, and that he observed the code even though he claimed he wasn’t a gang member. Kan said this was “very frustrating” for his ability to defend Havea.

The court found Kan’s account credible, and that Havea was “clearly concerned with and reluctant to speak out in a way which would have the potential to implicate and antagonise gang associates,” Justices Forrie Miller, Timothy Brewer and Simon Moore said in a decision released today.

Havea claimed Kan did not follow his instructions to call witnesses like his brother Panepasa Havea, even though he signed a written instruction to Kan not to call his brother as a witness.

“[W]e find it inconceivable that Mr Havea would have willingly signed a document which his lawyers prepared but which did not reflect the correct position,” the judges said.

Havea’s appeal also claimed Kan failed to advance his defence as instructed, but the Court of Appeal found that because he refused to give or call evidence, options for advancing his defence at trial were limited.

“We consider that given those constraints there was nothing more Mr Kan could have done to advance the defence case,” the judges said, dismissing Havea’s appeal.

Crown prosecutors alleged in the 2017 trial that Havea was the conduit between the mastermind of the kidnapping, Seng Lek Liev, also known as Cambo Jack, and the Head Hunters’ “ghost unit”.

There was bad blood over money and drugs between Liev and Prutsiriporn, and both were actively involved in the drug world.

Liev hired the ghost unit, who kidnapped the woman from her Auckland home and forced her into the boot of a car.

The 50-year-old was locked up in a garage without food and water for hours before she was forced into the boot again.

Bound with a sheet, she managed to pry open the hatch with a knife and chef’s steel she found in the boot.

She emerged but was flung out of the moving car, hitting her head on the pavement and fracturing her skull.

She died in hospital from her injuries two days later, after being held hostage for some 22 hours.

The mother-of-three known as Nui had served time for importing meth and was on active charges at the time of her death.