'Killer Clowns' jailed for murder

Two men found guilty of murdering a fellow drug dealer and dumping his body in a garage were today jailed for life with a minimum non-parole period of 18 years.

Karl Nuku, 19, and Mikail Pandey-Johnson, 24, were sentenced in the High Court at New Plymouth today after being found guilty of murdering Dean Browne in a Wellington flat in January last year.

On the instructions of Pandey-Johnson, the leader of a drug-dealing group calling themselves the Killer Clown Fiends, Nuku repeatedly struck Mr Browne over the head with a hammer before his body was dumped in the garage of a New Plymouth house.