Activist Tame Iti and another member of the Urewera four have been denied bail while they wait for their appeal hearing next month.

Iti and co-defendant Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara were sentenced to 2 1/2 years' jail in May after being convicted on five firearms charges, and one of unlawfully possessing Molotov cocktails.

The other members of the Urewera four - Emily Bailey and Urs Signer - were sentenced to nine months' home detention on firearms charges.

During the six-week trial, the jury could not decide if the four were guilty of participating in an organised criminal group as alleged by the Crown.

Iti and Kemara have appealed the weapons charges on which they were convicted and applied for bail while they await the hearing on August 22.

The pair's lawyers argued that the appeals against conviction would involve challenges to aspects of the Judge's summing up to the jury.

Kemara had no previous criminal convictions and had followed his bail conditions during the five years leading up to the trial, they said.

But Judge John Wild said as the summing up was not yet available to the court, Iti and Kemara relied solely on the merits of their appeal.

The Bail Act requires applicants to prove why bail should be granted and the court would only grant it pending appeal in exceptional circumstances, he said.

By the time of the appeal date Iti and Kemara would have been in prison for three months, a time the Crown submitted was not exceptional in the context of a two 1/2 year sentence.

Judge Wild dismissed the bail applications.

- © Fairfax NZ News