After being repeatedly refused last year, Matamata was granted parole last month and was to be released on July 6, but the Parole Board revoked its decision after he made threatening remarks to another prisoner.
He reappeared before the Parole Board on Friday, when chairwoman Jan Doogue asked him to explain himself.
Speaking Samoan via an interpreter, Matamata said his lack of understanding of English meant he didn’t realise what he was saying.
“I don’t know what is meant by what it is I said,” he claimed. “They swear at me and I repeated it back at them. He said he was going to ‘fk me up’, that’s what I repeated to him. I replied, ‘I’m going to fk you up’.
“It was in English and I was throwing back ‘con slang’. That is prison talk, I spoke like I would to a prisoner.
“I never meant it to be threatening, it’s as if I was joking. I thought that was the vibe I was getting off that person as well, it wasn’t my intention to threaten or scare anybody.”
Board chairwoman unconvinced by argument
“You have been charged and found guilty of threatening to assault another prisoner,” she said. “The answers you have given are to the effect that you’re entirely innocent and didn’t know what was going on, have I got that right?”
Matamata maintained that he did not understand what he was saying.
Doogue then questioned why Matamata had engaged in the argument in the first place.
“You told the board last time you appeared that, if you got in a confrontational situation, you would ‘walk away’,” she said. “Why didn’t you?”
Matamata was living at a self-care house at Auckland South Correctional Facility in Wiri and said the argument started over the residents’ supermarket shopping.
“The reason behind it all was there was a discussion about groceries or things that were missing from our shopping, and my approach was to talk to him,” he said. “There was no intention to threaten him.
“The reason for our disagreement was over shopping. It wasn’t heavy – at least, I didn’t think it was heavy. I could’ve gone to my room, but I didn’t go to my room, because I wanted to talk to the brother and address this issue with him.”
Parole Board member Campbell Roberts asked Matamata how he would change his attitude if he were to be released.
“If I was released, I will not do as I have done before,” he said. “I will not use the power I had before, because it has affected people, and it has also affected me and my family.
“I will focus on no other circle than my direct family. We will go to church, read the Bible and be closer to God.”
After a brief deliberation, the board declined Matamata’s parole. He can try again in October.