• Himatjit “Jimmy” Kahlon was found guilty of manslaughter and serious drug charges in Auckland.

• Kahlon gave Aiden Sagala, 21, beer contaminated with methamphetamine, leading to Sagala’s overdose death.

• Prosecutors argued Kahlon knew about the drugs; his defence claimed he was duped by a co-defendant.

A Fonterra manager who gave a young employee a slab of imported beer contaminated with a deadly dose of concentrated liquid methamphetamine has been found guilty of manslaughter and possession of methamphetamine for supply.

It took jurors in the High Court at Auckland only two hours to reach their decisions regarding Himatjit “Jimmy” Kahlon, 41. He was acquitted of one major drug charge: possession of cocaine for supply.

The family of Aiden Sagala, who was 21 years old when he died of a massive overdose in March last year, also sat in the courtroom as the verdict was announced. His sisters wept as the decision was announced.

“Thank God,” Sagala’s mother whispered under her breath.

Prosecutors described Kahlon as one of two men who schemed to import 700kg of liquid meth – an amount that, conservatively, would have sold for $80 million on the street – into New Zealand via 28,800 cans of Honey Bear House Beer and 22,680 bottles of kombucha.

Most of the beverages did actually contain beer and kombucha, to keep up the ruse of a legitimate import business. But the beer could not be resold in New Zealand because it didn’t have the proper labelling, so it was given away by Kahlon to friends, family and Fonterra colleagues, prosecutors said.

“It’s plain he wanted to be seen as the fun boss,” prosecutor Robin McCoubrey told jurors during his closing address earlier this week. “These cans are worthless, other than the cans containing the meth ... so you might as well give them away.

Aiden Sagala died after drinking beer contaminated with meth.

Kahlon recklessly caused Sagala’s death by knowing that some of the cans contained a deadly dose of illegal drugs but taking the risk of handing them out anyway, authorities alleged.

The fact that he “plainly got it wrong” and didn’t purposely give Sagala one of the spiked beverages “doesn’t begin to provide a defence to this charge of manslaughter”, McCoubrey said.

Himatjit Kahlon. Photo / Jason Oxenham

But defence lawyer Emma Priest disagreed with the basic premise that her client knew any of the beer contained methamphetamine. He was duped and taken advantage of, she said, by his co-defendant – a man with ongoing name suppression who pleaded guilty to multiple drug charges on the eve of trial this month.

“Mr Kahlon’s actions in giving away beers have resulted in the death of Aiden Sagala,” Priest said. “No one is disputing the tragedy in this case.

“Mr Kahlon accepts this, he is devastated by it and he will live with it for the rest of his life.”

But without knowing there was a risk in the first place, he couldn’t have been criminally reckless, she argued.

It makes no sense that he would have given out hundreds of cans of beer, and even drunk some himself the day after Sagala had overdosed, if he knew they were tainted and was trying to hide a major drug importation operation, Priest told jurors.

“He blindly trusted a man that he respected,” she said. “His trust of people, sadly, has been his downfall.”

Although 10 years Kahlon’s junior, the man with name suppression was a well-known businessman who has also garnered respect in the community for an unusual reason that cannot currently be reported.

Far from a partner in crime, Kahlon’s texts with the man showed him to be more of an “irrelevant” lackey, the defence argued. Kahlon was known for being extraordinarily generous with his money and his time, to the point he was naive, Priest said. That, compared with the co-defendant’s knack for fooling others into thinking he was an upstanding citizen, created a “perfect storm” in which lives were put at risk through no fault of Kahlon’s, the lawyer said.

When he visited Sagala in the hospital several days after the overdose, Kahlon learned the 21-year-old had meth in his system and started to piece together how he had been tricked into helping with a drug operation, his lawyer said. He was seen on CCTV entering the Manukau warehouse where the beer was stored immediately after the hospital visit and meeting with the co-defendant for about 30 minutes before both left.

Police used a forklift to remove boxes of Honey Bear House Beer from commercial premises in Manukau after the March 2023 overdose death of Aiden Sagala. Himatjit "Jimmy" Kahlon was put on trial for his manslaughter. Photo / Jason Oxenham

It was only then that the co-defendant must have revealed the real reason for the beer imports, Priest said, because soon thereafter Kahlon started to panic and act desperately – practically begging Sagala’s brother-in-law the next day to return the remaining cans.

But the Crown suggested it would be naive for jurors to think Kahlon knew nothing of the drug operation.

“He’s no idiot,” McCoubrey said, pointing out that the defendant oversaw 27 people as a manager at Fonterra. “He’s not a vulnerable man who’s been taken advantage of.”

Kahlon might not have been a high-level drug lord with a diamond-encrusted watch, a tiger on a leash and a mansion like Pablo Escobar, but he drove a Porsche, gave away thousands of dollars at a time to friends and had his own key to the warehouse where it would have been obvious the meth beer was being dried out and processed into crystal form, McCoubrey told jurors.

He pointed to a police interview in which Kahlon acknowledged helping his co-defendant pour out some of the beer and being surrounded by numerous buckets of a crystal substance. He also eventually acknowledged helping put some of the crystals into snap lock bags and helping to pack rubbish sacks with what turned out to be 20kg loads of methamphetamine.

Himatjit Kahlon's former co-defendant, who has name suppression, appears at Auckland District Court in 2023. The co-defendant was never charged with manslaughter but recently pleaded guilty to multiple charges involving drug importation via containers of beer and kombucha. Photo / Jason Oxenham

“Nothing could look more like drug dealing if it tried,” McCounbrey said.

When asked by police what he thought the crystalline substance was, Kahlon said he thought maybe it was used to make cocktails. That explanation beggars belief, the prosecutor said.

“It’s obvious that he knew what was going on,” McCoubrey said. “He wasn’t just aware of what was happening – in reality, he was involved in every stage of the process.”

Manslaughter and possession of methamphetamine for supply both carry maximum sentences of life imprisonment.

Justice Kiri Tahana set a sentencing date for February.

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.