The man, who has interim name suppression for reasons that cannot yet be published, appeared by audio-visual link in the High Court at Wellington this morning.
His lawyer, Louise Sziranyi, entered not guilty pleas on his behalf on five charges of murder and two of arson.
“There is an indication that a defence of insanity will be relied upon,” she told Justice Andru Isac.
The matter has been remanded to a case review hearing in May.
The defendant is accused of setting fire to a couch on the third floor of the Adelaide Rd hostel. That fire is understood to have happened shortly before the second blaze, which claimed the lives of five victims.
The victims were Kenneth Barnard, 67, Liam James Hockings, 50, Peter Glenn O’Sullivan, 64, Melvin Joseph Parun, 68, and Michael Wahrlich, 67, known by many as Mike the Juggler.
The victims were found in the burned husk of the building in the days after the fire, as police carried out a methodical and painstaking scene examination, hampered by heavy debris and building instability.
The fire started about 12.30am on Tuesday, May 16. Police spent nearly two weeks tracking down 99 unaccounted-for people who may or may not have been living in the building at the time.
