18 years’ jail for hammer horror death
Husband on parole when he battered and stabbed love rival in ‘vile act’
When Niraj Nilesh Prasad bludgeoned his wife’s new partner to death with a hammer, he was on bail, subject to a protection order, and a trespass notice.
Six months before the February 2021 murder, Prasad had assaulted his wife when she said she was leaving, striking her in the face and on the body and then delivering her for medical treatment for her bleeding mouth and swollen eye.
He said he snapped. He claimed he snapped again when he took a hammer and knife and lay in wait for two hours in the home of Faiz Ali and then stabbed and bashed him to death.
Justice Rob Osborne rejected provocation, remorse and even good character and imposed a life term with a non-parole term of 18 years and six months on the accountant, 39.
He got a six-month, concurrent jail term for the earlier assault on his former wife.
Faiz Ali had taken out a trespass order against him the day before the murder, after he was seen at his Christchurch flat, photographing the woman’s car.
Defence counsel James Rapley QC argued the evidence showed the killing took place in the context of a struggle and was a case of selfdefence.
But the Crown said the killing took place after “six months of pent-up rage and aggression” following the end of his marriage.
The Crown said Ali received 38 wounds from the hammer and knife attack which caused “plainly visible catastrophic head injuries” and the attack would have continued when he was defenceless, dying, and perhaps even dead.
Prasad sat downcast in the dock as the family of the victim of his hammer murder heaped their pain and sorrow upon him.
A sister of Faiz Ali, asked: “How can someone have so much hatred towards another person?”
Relatives of Ali told of the entire family being shattered and traumatised.
Ali’s family members called him a coward and “a cruel and inhuman devil”.
Faiz Ali’s sister said Prasad’s “vile act of vengeance” had taken away a pillar of their family. His “cowardly act” had taken away a loving father, son, brother, and friend.
A cousin of Ali said Prasad’s decision to take Faiz Ali’s life without any regard to the effect on others was unimaginable. Ali was the sole breadwinner for his family and he was continuing to support them back in Fiji.
The judge noted that Prasad had written letters of apology to his own family, and the victim’s family, but had never expressed a word of apology to his wife.
Justice Osborne also praised the bravery of neighbours who went to Ali’s apartment on hearing the attack take place, to see if they could help.