KEY POINTS:
A South Auckland youth gang member bent on revenge for a street fight killed a rival's father, leaving a knife buried in his chest after inflicting the fatal wound.
Marlan Tuporo is on trial in the High Court at Auckland after Iulio Naea was killed after a night of gang violence in the south Auckland suburb of Flat Bush on October 23, 2005.
The court today heard 21-year-old Tuporo admitted killing Mr Naea, but was using a defence of "provocation" that would require the jury to decide whether it was murder or the lesser charge of manslaughter.
"This isn't a whodunnit," crown prosecutor Kirsten Gray told the court.
Tuporo is accused of using a pipe wrench to beat Mr Naea and a kitchen knife to stab him.
Ms Gray said Mr Naea was found with a jagged cut 10cm long and 3cm wide on the side of his face.
She described puncture wounds into Mr Naea's liver and lungs and 15 other "slit wounds" on his neck and chest.
She said Mr Naea had no defensive injuries and his fingernails were left long and unbroken.
The court heard Tuporo was a member of the PDB gang - Penion Drive Boys - who came under attack from rivals the JCB - Junior Crip Boys - in the early hours of the Sunday morning that Mr Naea was killed.
Mr Naea's son George was a member of the JCB and they had been called in after the PDB damaged Mr Naea's house.
The court heard how Tuporo had found two fellow PDB members lying in the street after the fight with what looked like fatal injuries. He then went to Mr Naea's house to seek revenge.
For Tuporo, Ian Tucker, said his client's "provocation" began when he found his PDB friends injured in the street, believing one of them to be dead.
Mr Tucker said when Tuporo went to the house, Mr Naea told him "they were all meant to die", which further aggravated him.
Mr Tucker said Tuporo, who was drunk, had "lost it", and "lost his sense of reality", during the attack on Mr Naea.
The trial, before Justice Paul Heath, is set to last a week.
