NZ link to cold case
A New Zealand man has been arrested over the case of a man shot dead in a South Australian car park 18 years ago. Police said a 43-year-old Auckland man was arrested on Thursday and appeared in the Waitakere District Court yesterday. Robert Sabeckis was shot dead at a Gull Rock car park in Maslin Beach, south of Adelaide, at 1.15am on January 13, 2000. Sabeckis was sitting in his car when he was murdered by a person wielding a stolen sawn-off shotgun. The murderer took the car before crashing and fleeing. He dumped the gun near where the car crashed, along with a DNA sample which yielded no matches against Australia’s DNA databases. South Australia police said the man arrived in Australia from New Zealand in 1984. The man returned to New Zealand in April 2000, and was arrested at Piha where he had been living in a boarding house. Detective Superintendent Des Bray said the accused’s DNA was taken by New Zealand police in July 2017. A routine check as part of South Australia police’s Operation Persist threw up a DNA match in November, and the man’s extradition is being sought. The Aucklander’s arrest is the first after a law change that allowed DNA information to be shared between Australia and New Zealand.
Driver dies
The driver of a car died yesterday after suffering critical injuries in a collision with a crane in Hobsonville, West Auckland, on Thursday. The crane driver suffered minor injuries.
Mob leader jailed
A Hawke’s Bay Mongrel Mob leader who kidnapped and sexually violated a teenager because she failed to pay a drug debt has been jailed for a decade. Alexander ‘‘Sandy’’ Tamati, 60, was sentenced by Judge Tony Adeane in the Napier District Court yesterday. He sentenced Tamati to 10 years imprisonment with a minimum non parole period of five years. Tamati had pleaded guilty to a charge of supplying methamphetamine to the woman at the start of his trial last year, but defended four charges of unlawful sexual connection, two of kidnap, aggravated assault, assault on a female, assault with a blunt instrument and threatening to kill or do grievous bodily harm.
Teenagers charged
Four teenagers, three males and one female, have appeared in Youth Court charged with injuring Kelly Donner on the night he died in Flaxmere, Hastings. The youths, aged between 14 and 16 years old, appeared before Judge Max Courtney on a charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. The female was granted bail. The males were remanded in custody. They cannot be identified due to automatic name suppression orders that apply to Youth Court proceedings. Police are seeking a fifth youth in relation to Donner’s death. Donner, 40, died outside a bar on March 4.