A second man has been found guilty of defacing 20 historic Jewish graves with swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans after a two-day hearing at the Auckland District Court.
Christian Landmark, 20, had been charged with being a party to intentional damage after a significant amount of offensive graffiti was found on the gravestones in the Symonds Street Cemetery between 17 and 19 October last year.
Nearly all the gravestones in the Jewish quarter had been defaced, which included statements such as "F*** Israel" and "Don't f*** with us". The attack was condemned by Auckland's Jewish community.
Landmark had denied his involvement and maintained it was his accomplice Robert Moulden who did the tagging.
Robert Moulden, 19, plead guilty to the same charge in February and was sentenced to 320 hours community work. He testified against Landmark during the hearing, saying the culpability was "50/50".
Judge Russell Collins told the court the charge against Landmark was justified, saying he was "actively involved as a joint principal" in what was "extremely serious offending".
Moulden told the court he and Landmark were "pretty good friends" who had been living at the inner city Newton Lodge together.
He said the pair had been drinking on the night and the decision to tag the graves wasn't "premeditated".
"Am I anti-Semitic? No," Moulden said. "There are certain Israeli policies I disagree with which explains what I wrote [...] But it was drunken stupidity more than anything."
Defence lawyer, Tudor Clee, pointed to a text message exchange between the two accused, proposing Moulden had taken ownership for his actions. However, Judge Collins disagreed, saying there were other messages that inferred Landmark had taken part.
One text, written by Moulden and sent to Landmark, read: "If anyone finds out it was us they'll kill all three of us".
After the incident, Landmark took photos on his phone of Moulden desecrating the graves and later attempted to sell them to TV3. Judge Collins said he regarded this "attempt to make money" out of such a criminal act was "a serious aggravating factor".
"In my view it's implausible that the owner of the spray can, the person who took the photographs and who was present at the scene would have stood by and not taken part," he concluded.
Judge Collins said there was "a high likelihood of imprisonment" in this case because of several aggravating factors, including Landmark's "sustained lies" to police.
He said, "Landmark told many, many lies about his involvement… delivered in a calm and articulate way".
Landmark, who had travelled to New Zealand on a two-year visa which has now expired, was labelled as a "flight risk" by the prosecution.
He will remain in custody until his sentencing on June 20.
3 News
source: newshub archive
