WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A jury began its deliberations Wednesday in the trial of a man accused of murdering five people in Wellington, New Zealand, by deliberately setting fire to a boarding house that was nearly full when the blaze swept through the building.
The 50-year-old man, whose name was suppressed for the duration of the trial at the High Court in Wellington, pleaded not guilty to murder and arson charges for allegedly starting the May 2023 fire that killed five men at Loafers Lodge, a 92-bed hostel.
His lawyers didn't deny that their client lit the blaze, but they said he was not guilty by reason of insanity. In New Zealand, this means a jury must accept the defendant was incapable of understanding that his actions were wrong when he set two fires in the multistorey boarding house.
Prosecutors rejected the case for insanity during the four-week trial, saying the defendant knew his actions were wrong. They accepted the man had schizophrenia but said he lit the blaze because he didn't like living in the boarding house and wanted to seek a transfer to other accommodation.
The man twice tried to set the building alight on the fatal night, the court heard during the trial. He set a couch ablaze late in the evening, prompting an evacuation of the building.
After residents put out the fire, the man returned and placed cushions and a blanket in a cupboard before setting them alight. The defendant left the building without raising the alarm or calling emergency services.
The man's lawyers said their client was more mentally unwell than anyone had realized on the night of the fire, according to Radio New Zealand. They rejected the prosecutors' case that their client wanted a transfer, saying there was no evidence of that.
In a police interview played for the jury, the man denied setting the fires, despite officers telling him he had been captured on CCTV footage doing so, RNZ reported.
Some of the boarding house residents included social services clients and older, disabled and otherwise vulnerable people, as well as nurses working at a nearby hospital. The burned-out building remains standing in the district of Newtown, near the central city of New Zealand’s capital.
The men who died were all residents and included colorful and well-known Wellington identities. Michael Wahrlich was a veteran busker who juggled tennis balls and Liam Hockings’ daily foot tours of the area made him a familiar face to locals. The other three victims were Kenneth Barnard, Peter O’Sullivan and Melvin Parun.
Murder carries a mandatory life sentence in New Zealand, with judges required to set a prison term of at least 10 years before an offender can apply for parole. Arson carries a sentence of up to 14 years in prison.
Justice Peter Churchman outlined possible findings, including an alternative verdict of manslaughter, to jurors before they began deliberating, according to RNZ.
Authorities filed manslaughter charges in June against four other people who law enforcement said were responsible for the boarding house's management and operation, including aspects of the fire safety system. They all deny the charges. A trial date hasn't been set.
The deaths provoked outrage in New Zealand about the dilapidated and often unregulated state of boarding houses, which mostly accommodate low-income people with few options. Officials said at the time that the residence had no fire sprinklers and building codes did not require installation of sprinklers in older buildings that would need to be retrofitted.
Dozens of old boarding houses like Loafers Lodge were discovered to have no sprinklers, officials found, and many did not have working smoke detection systems. The fire provoked a suite of reviews and inquiries, though no legal changes have been made.
One lawmaker is seeking cross-party support for a bill to establish a register for boarding houses and their owners and mandate record-keeping.
The High Court in Wellington, New Zealand, Thursday, Sept.11, 2025. (AP Photo/Charlotte Graham-McLay)
NUUK, Greenland (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump has turned the Arctic island of Greenland into a geopolitical hotspot with his demands to own it and suggestions that the U.S. could take it by force.
The island is a semiautonomous region of Denmark, and Denmark's foreign minister said Wednesday after a meeting at the White House that a “ fundamental disagreement ” remains with Trump over the island.
The crisis is dominating the lives of Greenlanders and "people are not sleeping, children are afraid, and it just fills everything these days. And we can’t really understand it,” Naaja Nathanielsen, a Greenlandic minister said at a meeting with lawmakers in Britain’s Parliament this week.
Here's a look at what Greenlanders have been saying:
Trump has dismissed Denmark’s defenses in Greenland, suggesting it’s “two dog sleds.”
By saying that, Trump is “undermining us as a people,” Mari Laursen told AP.
Laursen said she used to work on a fishing trawler but is now studying law. She approached AP to say she thought previous examples of cooperation between Greenlanders and Americans are “often overlooked when Trump talks about dog sleds.”
She said during World War II, Greenlandic hunters on their dog sleds worked in conjunction with the U.S. military to detect Nazi German forces on the island.
“The Arctic climate and environment is so different from maybe what they (Americans) are used to with the warships and helicopters and tanks. A dog sled is more efficient. It can go where no warship and helicopter can go,” Laursen said.
Trump has repeatedly claimed Russian and Chinese ships are swarming the seas around Greenland. Plenty of Greenlanders who spoke to AP dismissed that claim.
“I think he (Trump) should mind his own business,” said Lars Vintner, a heating engineer.
“What's he going to do with Greenland? He speaks of Russians and Chinese and everything in Greenlandic waters or in our country. We are only 57,000 people. The only Chinese I see is when I go to the fast food market. And every summer we go sailing and we go hunting and I never saw Russian or Chinese ships here in Greenland,” he said.
Down at Nuuk's small harbor, Gerth Josefsen spoke to AP as he attached small fish as bait to his lines. He said, “I don't see them (the ships)” and said he had only seen “a Russian fishing boat ten years ago.”
Maya Martinsen, 21, a shop worker, told AP she doesn't believe Trump wants Greenland to enhance America's security.
“I know it’s not national security. I think it’s for the oils and minerals that we have that are untouched,” she said, suggesting the Americans are treating her home like a “business trade.”
She said she thought it was good that American, Greenlandic and Danish officials met in the White House Wednesday and said she believes that “the Danish and Greenlandic people are mostly on the same side,” despite some Greenlanders wanting independence.
“It is nerve-wrecking, that the Americans aren’t changing their mind,” she said, adding that she welcomed the news that Denmark and its allies would be sending troops to Greenland because “it’s important that the people we work closest with, that they send support.”
Tuuta Mikaelsen, a 22-year-old student, told AP that she hopes the U.S. got the message from Danish and Greenlandic officials to “back off.”
She said she didn't want to join the United States because in Greenland “there are laws and stuff, and health insurance .. .we can go to the doctors and nurses ... we don’t have to pay anything,” she said adding "I don’t want the U.S. to take that away from us.”
In Greenland's parliament, Juno Berthelsen, MP for the Naleraq opposition party that campaigns for independence in the Greenlandic parliament told AP that he has done multiple media interviews every day for the last two weeks.
When asked by AP what he would say to Trump and Vice President JD Vance if he had the chance, Berthelsen said:
“I would tell them, of course, that — as we’ve seen — a lot of Republicans as well as Democrats are not in favor of having such an aggressive rhetoric and talk about military intervention, invasion. So we would tell them to move beyond that and continue this diplomatic dialogue and making sure that the Greenlandic people are the ones who are at the very center of this conversation.”
“It is our country,” he said. “Greenland belongs to the Greenlandic people.”
Kwiyeon Ha and Evgeniy Maloletka contributed to this report.
FILE - A woman pushes a stroller with her children in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
Military vessel HDMS Knud Rasmussen of the Royal Danish Navy patrols near Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Juno Berthelsen, MP for the Naleraq opposition party that campaigns for independence in the Greenlandic parliament poses for photo at his office in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Fisherman Gerth Josefsen prepares fishing lines at the harbour of Nuuk, Greenland, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A woman walks on a street past a Greenlandic national flag in Nuuk, Greenland, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
