Rajinder, 35, has spent more than two weeks on trial before the High Court at Dunedin accused of the murder of 27-year-old Gurjit Singh at his Liberton home in January last year.
A pathologist found the victim had been stabbed at least 46 times and there had been an apparent decapitation attempt.
The trial, before the High Court at Dunedin, heard the final prosecution evidence this morning after which defence counsel Anne Stevens, KC, confirmed her client would not be giving or calling evidence.
The court earlier heard that various samples taken from the crime scene had found DNA 500,000 million times more likely to have come from Rajinder than another random New Zealander.
But Mrs Stevens said it should still raise a reasonable doubt in the mind of jurors.
“The probabilities sound high... just about make your eyes water because the numbers are huge. But the numbers do not make certainty, however large. Numbers go to infinity,” she said.
“Don’t be misled by high numbers being a certainty, that high enough is good enough.”
When forensic scientists combed the Hillary St scene they also found DNA, as well as fingerprints, belonging to unidentified individuals.
One of those anonymous parties could be the killer, Mrs Stevens stressed.
“This is not television. Science is not swallowed whole, it needs to be carefully digested.”
While the Crown described it as “a murder kit”, Mrs Stevens questioned why her client would openly buy the items using his bank card, knowing they could be traced back to him.
“He had knives at home that would do the job if he was set on murder,” she said.
Mrs Stevens said the obvious inference was that the items were purchased to assist with Rajinder’s work as a fibre-optic cable installer.
The fact they were not found when police searched the defendant’s Helensburgh home, she put down to a “poorly executed” search.
A hair found in the hand of Mr Singh provided “extremely strong” support for the proposition it came from Rajinder, the court heard previously.
But Mrs Stevens said it could have got their innocently.
The pair worked together for several months, Rajinder had sold his van to Mr Singh and they would borrow tools from one another.
“That one hair could be quite coincidental,” she argued. “We all know how pesky hair can be.”
While the Crown did not have to prove a motive, the defence said there was no evidence to show there was any animosity between the two men.
Rajinder had described Mr Singh to others as “hard-working and honest”.
“He was actively helping Gurjit Singh become an independent businessman,” Mrs Stevens said.
The victim married his wife Kamaljeet Kaur in India six months before his murder and her arrival in Dunedin was just days away.
The court heard there had earlier been a proposed arranged marriage between Ms Kaur and Rajinder, which she had ultimately rejected.
But Mrs Stevens said it had not caused any frustration, pointing to evidence from the defendant’s sister that he had simply shrugged it off.
“The notion Rajinder was upset, let alone distraught enough to murder a person, becomes implausible, a fantasy of the Crown’s,” she said.
“It doesn’t pass the truth test.”
Rajinder was eventually charged with murder on February 5 last year, a week after Mr Singh’s death.
A video of the interview was played for the jury and the defendant’s reaction of shock was telling, Mrs Stevens said.
“He responds like an innocent man.”
'It's not rocket science': Crown
But the Crown says the evidence against Rajinder is "completely overwhelming".
In closing submissions, prosecutor Richard Smith stressed to the jury it was not his job to prove why the crime took place - only that it did.
"This case is not at all about whether it makes sense for the defendant to have killed Gurjit Singh. Your role is not to make sense of the defendant’s behaviour, to rationalise what he did. It should go without saying, murder is not rational," he said.
"When you look at all the evidence together you’ll have no difficulty being satisfied beyond reasonable doubt."
He laid out the prosecution version of events at Mr Singh’s Hillary St home, which he said was consistent with the evidence heard over the last fortnight.
Mr Smith said the altercation between the men began inside the home where the victim was either pushed or burst through a window to escape his attacker.
Rajinder, he said, at some point cut his thumb depositing blood around the house as he pursued the victim outside.
On the deck area, it continued.
"Gurjit Singh put up a fight trying to defend himself," Mr Smith said.
In doing so, the victim allegedly grabbed some of Rajinder’s hair - from his head or beard - which was later found in his hand during the autopsy.
DNA testing provided "extremely strong" evidence that the hair belonged to the defendant, a forensic scientist earlier told the jury.
Mr Smith called it "truly extraordinary" that Rajinder could deny involvement in the killing on that evidence alone.
"That’s about all the evidence you need," he said.
If the jury needed a motive, he pointed to the fact Mr Singh’s wife Kamaljeet Kaur had previous turned down an arranged marriage to Rajinder.
The court previously heard she had her bags packed and was ready to move to Dunedin to be with her new husband.
"Is it a coincidence [Mr Singh] was murdered days before Ms Kaur was due to arrive in New Zealand, when they were due to start their life together?" Mr Smith asked.
"Perhaps that opened old wounds."
The prosecutor also highlighted the "ridiculous lies" told by Rajinder during the police investigation.
He initially blamed a cut to his hand on a chainsaw accident from weeks earlier, only changing his account when shown CCTV footage from the day of the murder.
Rajinder then told police he had sustained the wound when he had taken his wife on a midnight driving lesson to Mosgiel and had fallen off his new bike.
"Cosmetic scratches" to the frame of the bike were just a flimsy bid to corroborate the story, Mr Smith said.
He suggested to the jury the trip to Mosgiel was just a bid to create an alibi or dispose of evidence – perhaps both.
"It’s a pack of lies," Mr Smith said.
During the trial, jurors were shown footage of Rajinder buying a knife, neck gaiter and a pair of gloves just hours before Mr Singh was killed, transactions the defendant never admitted to police.
And the items were never found.
Had he coincidentally lost all of them, Mr Smith asked, "or was he buying a murder kit".
The Crown also pointed to electronic evidence gathered from electronic devices linked to the defendant.
Despite telling police he did not know where Mr Singh lived, there was evidence of a search for his exact address on his phone less than a month beforehand.
Then, just hours prior to the murder, a phone used by Rajinder and his father had been used for an identical search.
Mr Smith said the defendant’s phone was completely inactive between 9.55pm and 12.01am - the exact window when the Crown said the killing occurred.
He told the jury the weight of the circumstantial evidence was "completely overwhelming".
"Use your common sense," Mr Smith urged. "it’s not rocket science."
Justice Rachel Dunningham will sum up the case for jurors tomorrow before they retire to consider their verdict.
