New Zealand: Indian-origin man sentenced to life for wife's murder

Wellington, June 5: An

-origin man in

has been sentenced to life for killing his estranged wife while he was on bail, The New Zealand Herald reported on Thursday.

The High Court at Wellington on Thursday sentenced Rajeshwar Singh, 47, to a mandatory life sentence with a minimum non-parole period of 16 years, and a concurrent sentence of three months' jail.

Singh, a taxi driver, had earlier pleaded guilty to killing Sarwan Lata in November last year. He stabbed her to death after bypassing her Woodridge home's new locks and an elaborate warning system of vases and chairs that the victim had laid.

He had been granted bail the previous month, while facing a charge of breaching a protection order. The order prevented him from seeing her or being near her house, but he had been constantly near her home in the weeks leading up to the murder.

Justice Ronald Young said a probation officer report showed Singh had a deeply worrying attitude to women.

"You considered that you were entitled to kill her... You had a callous disregard for your wife, and her family," Justice Young said.

"You did not understand, or did not appreciate, that men do not control women. Your wife was perfectly entitled to not live with you."

Aggravating factors included the home invasion - in breach of bail conditions and a protection order - and that the murder was planned. He had also been stalking her before the murder.

The couple had come together in an arranged marriage in Fiji in 1991 and moved to New Zealand in 1998. The couple had a son who suffered from muscular dystrophy and died in 2011.

Police said the couple had a long history of physical and mental abuse. There were nine reported incidents of family violence since September 2003, and countless unreported incidents during their 22 years of marriage.

IANS