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

Leafa Vitale

Leafa Vitale was a Minister of Works and Minister of Women's Affairs in Samoa, who along with Toi Aukuso, former Minister 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

Toi Aukuso Cain 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...

 conspired to assassinate the Prime Minister Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi

Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi

Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi is a Samoan politician who has been Prime Minister of Samoa since 1998.-Biography:Born at Lepa, Samoa, Malielegaoi is an economist by profession...

, the Chief Justice

Chief Justice

The Chief Justice in many countries is the name for the presiding member of a Supreme Court in Commonwealth or other countries with an Anglo-Saxon justice system based on English common law, such as the Supreme Court of Canada, the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the Court of Final Appeal of...

, the Minister of Justice, and New Zealand's High Commissioner to Samoa

Mac Price

Macalister "Mac" Price, , was a senior New Zealand Foreign Affairs official, who held diplomatic postings in Japan, Australia, Indonesia, the South Pacific, Samoa, and Malaysia....

.

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

Luagalau Levaula Kamu was a lawyer and Minister of Public Works in Samoa, whose assassination shocked the Samoan and Pacific Islands community....

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

Hanging

Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...

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

Life imprisonment

Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...

by the head of state.