KILLING BY ACCIDENT

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 10956, 19 July 1921, Page 6

KILLING BY ACCIDENT

A$ ISLAND TRAGEDY. ACCUSED FOUND NOT GUILTY. SUVA (Fiji), June 27. One of the most extraordinary cases of killing by accident in recent times was revealed at the recent Criminal Circuit Oou(t siftings at J.autoka. An elderly Indian named Vekatasami was walking along the railway line near where a steam plough stood on April 27th when ho was seen to fall. When the Indian who saw him fall reached him he was bathed in blood, and after being conveyed to the Lautoka Hospital died after an operation. The medical evidence showed he had been shot on the outer part of the left buttock and again through the intestines two inches to the right of the navel. % Lieutenant W. J. A. Atcir, manager of Drasa estate, was charged with manslaughter. Mr Weir said ho had a .303 rifle, as he was a member of a rifle club, and os he could not attend the rifle butts often ho practised shooting at targets or pigeons on the estate. , On April 27th; he said, he fired at 'pigeons towards tho hills, after taking care -that no one was likely to be in jthat direction. The bird was on a mango tree, and 1 ehhid the mango was a jungle, and behind that a swamp. The pigeon was m»sed, and flew to a smaller tree. He fired again, the rifle being sighted at zero. There were stone boulders in the jungle. After hearing of the accident he connected himself with it. From the way ho held the rifle tho bullet could not have gone within 800 yards of where tho man was hit. He vss woll acquainted with the spot where the plough was. Tho plough was fully 1500 yards from where ho fired. He said tho bullets must have ricohetted once or even twice to have been able to hit the man. This was amazing enough, and the evidence supported an idea of a double rfehocet, ns the medical evidence showed that the bullet wSs travelling up from tho ground when it (or they) lilt the deceased. Mr Weir was fo’tnd not guilty and discharged. • , „ Outside o, the »or probably much a remarkable accident has never been heard.