Urewera appeal case lost

Concern was expressed earlier this week by at least one commetator about the blurring of the distinction between the police and the state – one way to define a police state.

The conduct of this case indicates that this process is well along the way

Urewera Four lose appeals

The so-called Urewera Four have lost their appeals against conviction and sentence.

NZ Herald,

29 October, 2012

The so-called Urewera Four have lost their appeals against conviction and sentence.

In a decision released this afternoon, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal by Tame Iti, Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara, Urs Signer and Emily Bailey.

Tuhoe activists Iti and Kemara were jailed for two and a half years in May after being found guilty in the High Court at Auckland of firearms offences relating to the 2007 Urewera raids.

Signer and Bailey were each sentenced to nine months of home detention after they were found guilty of unlawful possession of firearms.

At the appeal Iti's lawyer Russell Fairbrother argued the trial jury should have been directed by the judge to the difference between the worlds in which they lived and in which the Tuhoe activist lived.

Mr Fairbrother said there was nothing inherently unlawful in what happened at the camps.

The jury was not directed on what was lawful or not, nor were they directed on each individual charge, he argued.

Kemara's lawyer Gretel Fairbrother said the jury should have been directed on what was lawful, on each individual charge and also on how each individual charge related to each accused.