Prison time for six over kidnap death

Police are calling the death of Auckland woman an example of the havoc created by the Head Hunters gang.

Six men – Seng Lek Liev, Apichart Korhomklan, Luigi Havea, Masi Vaifali, Joseph Benjamin Haurua, and Sodarith Sao – have been sentenced to up to 12 years’ imprisonment over the death of Jindarat Prutsiriporn.

The 50-year-old died when she fell, bound and gagged, from the boot of a moving car in Papatoetoe, South Auckland in 2016.

At sentencing in the High Court in Auckland yesterday, Justice Matthew Palmer described the events that led to her death.

Drug dealer Prutsiriporn had had a falling out with Seng Lek Liev, despite the pair once having been so close that he called her ‘‘mum’’.

Liev engaged a group within the Head Hunters gang, known as the ‘‘Ghost Unit’’, to kidnap Prutsiriporn.

The group tried to kidnap her on February 15, but failed when a passing motorist reported them to police as behaving suspiciously outside her house.

Disturbingly, Justice Palmer said, the gang was later able to find out details about the motorist by using a source to run their licence plate through a VTNZ database.

Two weeks later, the group lured Prutsiriporn to a car outside her house under the ruse of a drug deal. She was dragged out of the vehicle to another waiting car by a member of the Ghost Unit.

The court had heard she was held in different locations for about 22 hours until she escaped from a car boot on March 1 about 7.30pm. She used a chef’s steel to force the boot open. When the car accelerated, she fell out and suffered a blow to the head, which resulted in her death.

‘‘It’s not exactly clear why Ms Prutsiriporn was kidnapped. The kidnapping was clearly, carefully planned and pre-meditated,’’ Justice Palmer said.

‘‘We don’t know exactly how Ms Prutsiriporn spent the next 19 hours. But she must have been in dire fear for her life.’’

Justice Palmer said he considered Liev’s offending the worst of those involved.

‘‘I accept that Mr Liev was the architect of the kidnapping. Ms Prutsiriporn was a small, vulnerable middle-aged woman. Mr Liev was the only offender who seems to have had difficulty with her.’’

A victim impact statement from a friend of Prutsiriporn spoke of her as a kind, generous and fun woman, likeable and popular, Justice Palmer said. Her son now had constant nightmares and woke in the night to check his house was secure.

Outside court, Senior Sergeant Sean Vickers said he hoped the sentencing provided Prutsiriporn’s family and friends with ‘‘some degree of closure, following what has been an incredibly difficult 18 months’’.

‘‘This horrific case shows us exactly what the Head Hunters motorcycle gang stand[s] for, and the damage they are doing to our communities,’’ Vickers said.

The police investigation into Prutsiriporn’s kidnap had led to the arrest of 11 members and associates of the Head Hunters gang.

Prior to the trial, five offenders pleaded guilty to their role in the incident. One had already pleaded guilty to manslaughter.