Fabiano Dakai will spend the foreseeable future in a mental hospital after being found not guilty by reason of mental impairment of the murder of 34-year-old Navua security guard Timoci Dogai in 2019.
The matter was called before High Court judge Justice Daniel Goundar for judgment in Suva yesterday.
Dakai pleaded not guilty to the single charge of murder by reason of mental impairment.
He was alleged to have struck the deceased on the head with the blunt side of an axe.
The prosecution had said that Dakai made utterances about a feud with the deceased, and claimed the deceased practised witchcraft and at one point even controlled the accused.
The reports of three psychiatrists on Dakai’s mental state at the time of the murder concluded that Dakai was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.
Justice Goundar said it was more likely than not that on the material day, the accused was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and did not know that striking the deceased on the head with an axe was wrong, according to the ordinary standards of reasonable people.
Justice Goundar also ordered that a copy of his judgment and order be served to the superintendent of St Giles Psychiatric Hospital and the permanent secretary for the Ministry of Health and Medical Services.
