The Star: February 16, 2023
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<strong>The</strong> <strong>Star</strong> Thursday <strong>February</strong> <strong>16</strong> <strong>2023</strong><br />
6<br />
NEWS<br />
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• By Sam Sherwood<br />
THE MURDER of a woman by<br />
a stranger on leave from a secure<br />
mental health unit will be the<br />
subject of a coronial inquiry.<br />
Zakariye Hussein, 37, pleaded<br />
guilty in September to killing<br />
Laisa Waka Tunidau as she<br />
walked home from work on June<br />
25.<br />
Hussein was an inpatient at<br />
Hillmorton Hospital and had<br />
10 years earlier been jailed for a<br />
stabbing rampage, nearly killing<br />
a man.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re are two reviews following<br />
the murder - one into<br />
Hussein’s care, the other into the<br />
secure unit at Hillmorton.<br />
On Tuesday, Coroner Alexandra<br />
Cunninghame said in minute<br />
released to the NZ Herald<br />
that she had earlier postponed<br />
opening an inquiry in order to<br />
allow for the criminal process to<br />
proceed.<br />
“At the time of Mrs Waka’s<br />
murder, Mr Hussein was an inpatient<br />
at Hillmorton Hospital.<br />
<strong>The</strong> circumstances in which he<br />
left the hospital on June 25, 2022,<br />
have been the subject of a review<br />
which was commissioned by Te<br />
Whatu Ora (the review).<br />
“I have determined that it is<br />
now appropriate for me to open<br />
an inquiry into Mrs Waka’s<br />
death, and I hereby do so.”<br />
Justice Cameron Mander<br />
MISSED: Laisa Waka Tunidau, pictured here with her<br />
12-year-old son Eparama, was killed as she walked home<br />
from work on June 25.<br />
sentenced Hussein to life imprisonment<br />
with a minimum<br />
non-parole period of 13 years in<br />
November.<br />
Three psychiatric reports<br />
were prepared for the criminal<br />
proceedings.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y found he was capable of<br />
being involved in inflicting violence<br />
when not acutely unwell.<br />
He held “intense grandiose<br />
and religious beliefs”.<br />
He believed God was going to<br />
give him money so he could buy<br />
houses and marry staff.<br />
<strong>The</strong> clinical staff he engaged<br />
with said he had endless discussions<br />
about these beliefs.<br />
On the day of the killing, he<br />
was frustrated with hospital<br />
staff, in particular, because they<br />
removed staples from a newspaper<br />
supplement advertising real<br />
estate that he had been examining<br />
and circling properties he<br />
was going to purchase.<br />
He then left to tell his family<br />
he would not be going back to<br />
the hospital, telling himself God<br />
had given him a “hell of a sad<br />
life”.<br />
On his way, he stopped at a<br />
library to look at the property<br />
section of a newspaper.
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