MURDER IN SAMOA

Taranaki Daily News, 6 October 1934, Page 8

MURDER IN SAMOA

DEATH SENTENCE PASSED. ONE NATIVE KILLS ANOTHER. A charge of murdering a neighbour named Sifaga at Tuana’i, on the island of Upolo, Samoa, was preferred against a Samoan named Siaosi at Apia recently, before the Chief Judge, Mr. J. H. Luxford, and one Samoan and three European assessors. The evidence showed that the two men, who were cultivating adjoining taro patches, had a dispute concerning their boundary. Accused said that Sifaga, who was working on a small area that was in dispute, was requested by him to desist, pending a settlement of their differences by reference to the owner of the land, but that the deceased refused to comply. Siaosi struck Sifaga twice on the head with a crowbar, inflicting injuries that proved fatal two days later; , Accused said that he heard laughing when he spoke to Sifaga and that he thought that the latter’s wife and daughter, who were present, were laughing at him. This, he said, provoked him. He had no intention to kill Sifaga when he struck him.

The assessors returned a verdict of guilty of murder, with a recommendation to leniency. Siaosi was sentenced to death. The sentence is subject to review by the New Zealand Government.