British backpacker Grace Millane met her killer on the dating app Tinder before he calmly went on a date with another woman while Millane’s body was stuffed in a suitcase at his hotel apartment, prosecutors at a New Zealand murder trial said yesterday.
Defense lawyers said Millane died accidentally as the result of a consensual sex act that went wrong.
They said the man restricted Millane’s breathing by applying pressure to the neck, news site RNZ reported.
Millane’s body was found in a forested area in the Waitakere Ranges near Auckland a week after she disappeared in December last year on the eve of her 22nd birthday.
She had been traveling through New Zealand as part of a planned year-long trip abroad after graduating from university.
The 27-year-old man charged with murdering Millane has pleaded not guilty. His name is being kept secret by court order.
RNZ reported that the defendant cried yesterday as his lawyer, Ian Brookie, made his opening statements.
Millane’s parents have traveled from Britain to watch the trial.
Millane’s death struck a deep chord in New Zealand, which prides itself on welcoming tourists and where many people also travel abroad.
Hundreds of people attended candlelight vigils after Millane’s death, and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spoke about New Zealanders feeling “hurt and shame” that Millane was killed in their nation.
Crown Prosecutor Robin McCoubrey said that CCTV cameras filmed Millane and the man kissing and enjoying their time together on Dec. 1 last year at a burger joint, a Mexican cafe and then a bar, RNZ reported.
“They were plainly comfortable in one another’s company” before entering the man’s hotel rooms together, the prosecutor said.
He said the morning after the man killed Millane, he did Google searches for “Waitakere Ranges” and “hottest fire,” took intimate photographs of her body and watched pornography, RNZ reported.
The prosecutor said the man then hired a vehicle and bought a suitcase, stuffing Millane’s body into it.
He messaged another woman to confirm a date he had arranged earlier on Tinder and talked to her about how somebody could get in trouble for manslaughter after rough sex that went wrong.
“He doesn’t seem concerned by the presence of a dead body in his apartment, but goes up the road to have a date with another woman at a bar,” the prosecutor said.
“You may think he’s testing out a version of events he may later have to rely on, to see how it sounds,” he said.
However, Brookie said that the man had restricted Millane’s breathing with her knowledge and encouragement.
“Put simply, this death was an accident,” Brookie said. “He certainly didn’t murder her.”
The trial is expected to take up to five weeks.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing