Mongrel Mob life member Harry Tam has demanded that NZ First leader Winston Peters apologises by 5pm next Tuesday for publically claiming Tam had helped a woman with Covid-19 cross the border into Northland.
Tam, a former senior civil servant who now works with gangs, sent the former deputy prime minister a letter written by his lawyer, Ron Mansfield, QC,
Peters had alleged Tam had smuggled the women connected to the Northland Covid scare across the border from Auckland.
Stuff has reported the letter said Peters' claims were "heard by the entire country and caused the adverse reaction that you had hoped that they would. Many people may now think Mr Tam is responsible".
On TV3's The Nation last Saturday, Peters repeated claims that had been circulating on social media and in WhatsApp groups that Tam brought the woman to Northland via Auckland under false pretences.
The women then evaded health authorities and police and one refused to say where they had been in Northland.
Peters told The Nation the women had connections to the Mongrel Mob, and that they had stayed in a hotel in central Whangārei, but when one of the women returned a positive Covid test she fled to a marae further north.
"This person came here with a gang member assigned essential worker status, falsified the reason she was coming," Peters said.
Tam has denied any involvement with the case, which led to a Covid-19 scare and resulted in the region being put under level 3 restrictions.
He said he had not travelled to Northland during the Delta outbreak. And in the letter to Peters, Tam said he did not know, or have any association with, either of the two women, or their travel to Northland.
Peters had been asked for comment today but had not yet read the letter.