Zakariye Mohamed Hussein, 30, is serving a term of life imprisonment, imposed in 2022, after stabbing a stranger in Christchurch while on community leave from a mental-health facility.
In June that year, he was walking through the suburb of Sockburn towards his family home when he came across mother of four Laisa Waka Tunidau — a complete stranger — and stabbed her to death.
Hussein appeared in the Dunedin District Court yesterday where he pleaded guilty to injuring with intent to do grievous bodily harm.
The defendant, who appeared by video link from Auckland prison and represented himself, had his case postponed until the afternoon so David Robinson could sentence him, but his impromptu disrobing derailed that course.
The judge made an inquiry about Hussein’s surname and the man’s response was to turn away from the camera and swiftly remove all his clothes.
He was completely nude by the time the link to the prison was cut.
Judge Robinson expressed surprise, as Hussein had appeared "polite" during interactions earlier in the day.
According to court documents, the defendant was housed at the Otago Corrections Facility on January 15 as staff were starting to lock up prisoners for the night.
With a pen and paper in his hand, Hussein walked up the stairs of the unit towards his cell where a Corrections officer was standing.
"Without warning or provocation, the defendant struck the complainant in the lip with his hand," a police summary said.
He advanced on the victim, "swinging the pen side to side" and caused three puncture wounds to the man’s arms.
Hussein offered no explanation when interviewed by police and had since been transferred to the country’s only maximum-security prison.
It was yet another sudden violent outburst in a growing catalogue of crimes.
Hussein kidnapped a delivery driver at knifepoint and stabbed a council worker in a 2012 rampage across Christchurch.
In 2018, he attacked a Hillmorton Hospital nurse and poured a cup of coffee over their head.
Three psychiatric reports were prepared for his murder sentencing and detailed Hussein’s "intense grandiose and religious beliefs", NZME reported.
He believed God was going to give him money so he could buy houses and marry staff, resulting in endless discussions about those thoughts.
On the day of the killing, he became frustrated with hospital staff because they removed staples from a real-estate supplement that he had been perusing, NZME reported.
He later told a doctor that when he checked his bank account and saw that God had not deposited the "millions and billions" to buy property, he became enraged.
Hussein’s sentencing for the prison attack was adjourned until August.
