MURDER OF TWO INDIAN HAWKERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11857, 8 January 1902, Page 5

MURDER OF TWO INDIAN HAWKERS.

The. Fiji Times of December 28 says: — The charge of murder brought against a Fijian youth, of some 20 summers, named Alapati, for killing one of two Indian hawkers 'on July 20, in the district of Savu Savu, Vanua Levu, engaged the attention of the Supreme Court in its criminal jurisdiction the whole of last week, and resulted in the accused being found guilty of the crime with which he was charged, and the criminal was sentenced to death in the usual form. More than usual interest attached to the case, inasmuch as the accused stood his trial for the murder of the second Indian at the last assizes, and was found not guilty. Thereupon the authorities were put upon their metal to unearth 'the perpetrators of the double murder, and Sergeant Gosstray was commissioned to proceed to the scene of the crime to discover the real culprits, with the result that at the end of his investigation the sergeant charged : Alipati with the crime. He was arrested, and a prima.facie case having been made out before the local magistrate, the accused was committed to take his trial at the present-assizes/ with the result as noted. There was a long array of witnesses, numbering some 27, who . testified all they knew covering the movements of the prisoner on or about the date of the double murder. This evidence, pieced together, sheeted home the crime.