Urewera group was ‘training to kill’
Two boys taken to the Urewera training camps blindfolded and forced to the ground at gunpoint are set to be the Crown’s star witnesses in the case against the Urewera Four.
Startling surveillance camera footage was played to the High Court at Auckland yesterday showing balaclava-clad members of a group patrolling with rifles, running with lit molotov cocktails and appearing to practise leaving a car while under enemy fire.
Crown prosecutor Ross Burns said most Crown witnesses were police but two civilians, who actually attended the camps in 2007, would testify.
The boys were made to blindfold themselves and were driven to a secret location where they were dragged from the car and forced to the ground at gunpoint, he said.
The guns were fired but the boys were later told it was a ‘‘training exercise’’.
The case against Tame Iti, Emily Bailey, Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara and Urs Signer took shape yesterday with Mr Burns saying the alleged organised criminal group was ‘‘training to kill’’ for its cause of Maori governance of the Tuhoe region.
‘‘They had the intention of carrying out serious violent offences,’’ he said – ‘‘to commit guerilla warfare’’. Intercepted text messages spoke of ‘‘killing the white eye’’ and ‘‘killing the white motherf.....s’’.
Documents were found detailing practice operations labelled ‘‘cars, bridges, cowshed, ambush’’.
Police observed ‘‘military-style’’ camps at various places in the Ruatoki area, near Whakatane, in November 2006, and in January, April, June, August, September and October of 2007.
The four accused and the late Tuhoe Lambert, a Vietnam War veteran, were said to be the ringleaders, organisers and trainers.
As the video footage was played, Mr Burns pointed out several of those formerly charged in the case including Wellington activist Valerie Morse carrying a pistol.