The man who deliberately lit a Wellington hostel fire that claimed five lives has been sentenced to life imprisonment and won’t be eligible for parole for at least 22 years.  Esarona Lologa appeared in the High Court at Wellington today on five counts of murder and one of arson for lighting the deadly blaze at Loafers Lodge in Newtown in May 2023.  He unsuccessfully claimed a defence of insanity at trial, saying voices commanded him to light two fires at the boarding house.  The public gallery in the High Court at Wellington was full today with friends and family of the men killed in the hostel: Mike Wahrlich, Liam Hockings, Peter O’Sullivan, Melvin Parun and Kenneth Barnard.  In a powerful victim impact statement, Parun’s brother, Louis Parun, acknowledged the men who died, those who were injured, and everyone involved in fighting the fire and bringing the case to court.  “For us, the loss is profound,” he said. “The long shadow of that night will always remain with us.”  He said his brother was a man of “quiet strength and gentle humour”, and that his sudden, violent death had left the family brokenhearted.  “I wish to say to the man who lit those fires, I am 81 years old, I’ve lived long enough to see much of life. There’s moments of beauty and there’s depths of sorrow. What you did brought unimaginable pain to many, and the loss of five good men whose lives will never return.”  Parun said he took a “solemn satisfaction” in knowing that “long after I have departed this earth, you will still be behind bars”.  Melvin Parun’s daughter, Sophia Parun, also gave an emotional statement, looking angrily at Lologa as he sat in the dock.  “To ‘your name’ ... You don’t deserve a single word in my vocabulary or a single letter in my alphabet.”  Margaret Wahrlich cried as she gave her statement about her brother, affectionately known as Mike the Juggler. She carried a framed photo of him, as she did throughout the trial.  “I want you to see my brother’s face and to ensure he is remembered as a person and not a name,” she told Lolonga. “Can you look at his photo?  “How could you take his life from him that he loved so much?”  She described how she hadn’t known where Mike was living at the time of the fire, but that she had walked past Loafers Lodge the next morning and hoped that wasn’t where he was staying.  “This day, it plays on my mind that I stood there looking at that very building where my brother’s body was still inside,” she sobbed.  She eventually received the call that Mike had died in the fire, and her heart broke.  “It has been broken since.  “To know that you selfishly cut his life short is incredibly difficult to accept. ... What you did was inhumane, and no one deserves to go through that.”  Barnard’s nephew, Nathaniel Johnstone, said he had grown up knowing his uncle and had lived with him as a young adult.  He described him as “strikingly open-hearted and genuine”, but someone who faced challenges in life that left him unable to be housed safely.  Johnstone said it was unsettling to know that “someone of that character, a really kind and true person and someone who was able to respond to some significant challenges and cruelty in life without becoming malicious and resentful, should come to an end in that way.”  In sentence, Justice Peter Churchman described the various impacts of the fires, from loss of life, injuries, trauma, and financial hardships.  “The depth and the breadth of loss caused by your actions is immense,” the judge told Lologa.  He noted legislation required him to set a minimum non-parole period of at least 17 years if the offending met certain criteria.  He said Lologa’s offending met multiple criteria, including that it was premeditated and “calculated”, the victims were “particularly vulnerable”, and that the murders happened in the course of another s...