[4] When New Zealand temporarily abolished the death penalty for murder from 1941 to 1949, it did not extend abolition to the Cook Islands.
When the government of Niue was split from the Cook Islands in 1957,[5] the use of the death penalty was reaffirmed,[6] and provision was made for executions to be carried out in New Zealand.
[7] In October 1956 Rima Kurariki was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
[10][11] Post-independence, the Cook Islands government reaffirmed the death penalty for treason in section 76 of the Crimes Act 1969.
[14] The Cook Islands announced the removal of its legal provisions for capital punishment in 2007, without ever having put them into use.