A 14-year-old accused of murder has told the court he doesn’t remember how a knife he was holding came to have a Flaxmere man’s blood on it.
Haami Hanara is on trial at the High Court in Napier charged with the murder of 40-year-old Kelly Donner, who was found with critical stab injuries outside a Flaxmere pub in March this year.
Hanara took the stand for nearly three hours today to testify, saying he didn’t stab the Flaxmere man deliberately.
Under questions from his defence lawyer Eric Forster, he was asked what was on the knife he can be seen holding in CCTV images taken on the night of the attack. He told the court it was blood from Mr Donner.
However when asked how Mr Donner’s blood got on the knife, he couldn’t remember.
Earlier, Hanara told the court he was given the knife by a fellow teenager who was involved in the attack of Kelly Donner.
Under cross examination by Crown Prosecutor Steve Manning the 14-year-old admitted that the blood that covered his shoes was Kelly Donner's.
He was also asked if he remembered saying, "I stabbed him - run" to the group of youths who had attacked the rough sleeper that night.
Hanara denied saying those words and said that the witnesses who gave the evidence was lying.
Mr Manning made the point that Hanara was the only one seen with a knife that night and asked what would happen if you stabbed a person in the neck. The teenager replied, "They are gonna die".
The 14-year-old was then directly asked if he knew that he’d stabbed Kelly but didn’t want to own up to it, which the teenager denied.
The defence has closed its case and both the Crown and the defence will sum up tomorrow.
Read about evidence given earlier today .
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