Eletise Leafa Vitale is the son of Women's Affairs Minister

Leafa Vitale Leafa Vitale was a Minister of Works and Minister of Women's Affairs in Samoa, who along with Toi Aukuso, former Minister of Post and Telecommunications, plotted the assassination of Samoan Minister of Public Works Luagalau Levaula Kamu in 1999. ...

who along with former Communications Minister

Toi Aukuso Toi Aukuso Cain (4 January 1959 – April 18, 2009) was a Samoan politician. He was elected Member of Parliament for the Faleata West constituency in 1979, and served for twenty years until his arrest. He served for a time as Minister of Post an ...

conspired to assassinate the Prime Minister Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi, the Chief Justice, the Minister of Justice, and New Zealand's High Commissioner to Samoa. On the night of 16 July 1999 during celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the ruling Human Rights Protection Party he shot the Minister of Works

Luagalau Levaula Kamu Luagalau Levaula Kamu (died 16 July 1999) was a Samoan lawyer and Cabinet Minister. His 1999 assassination was the first political assassination in Samoa since independence in 1962. Kamu trained as a lawyer in New Zealand, at Victoria University ...

in the back. He pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to death by

hanging Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging i ...

on 6 August 1999 by Justice Andrew Wilson. His death sentence was commuted to

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...

by the head of state. Vitale was granted parole in 2010, but rearrested for breach of parole in 2019.

References

Samoan prisoners sentenced to death Prisoners sentenced to death by Samoa Samoan people convicted of murder People convicted of murder by Samoa Living people Year of birth missing (living people) {{Samoa-bio-stub