Kapis charged with Madang bank robbery
By JULIA DAIA BORE
HEAVILY armed policemen sealed off Boroko’s Turumu Street yesterday as top suspect William Kapis was brought under tight security to the Boroko Committal Court to be read a charge of robbery in connection with the Bank South Pacific (BSP) robbery in Madang.
Appearing with Kapis before magistrate Danny Wakikura were 33 others. Ten of them, including Kapis, appeared for armed robbery while 24 others faced individual charges of being an accessory to the crime.
Kapis looked freshly scrubbed and clean in a maroon sports shorts and shirt with his two feet heavily bandaged. Unable to walk on his own, Kapis was carried by two of his accused mates from the police van into the courtroom.
When seated in the courtroom, he winched in pain and had to be supported by another accused to sit up-right.
Two of those who accompanied him were women, one of them carrying a month-old baby girl who lay sound asleep in her arms.
Kapis and his nine accomplices listened as their charges were read out, that they did use violence and stole K2,407,315.35 from Mathias Manovo, the Madang BSP bank manager, the property of BSP and at the aforesaid time (July 5, 2008) were armed with dangerous weapons, namely high-powered firearms, and thereby contravening section 386 (1)(2)(a)(b)(c) of the PNG Criminal Code Act, chapter 262.
Magistrate Wakikura ordered that they be remanded in custody and sent them to Bomana Correctional Services until their next appearance on Aug 7. The others 24 were also remanded in custody.
Before being taken away, Kapis pleaded with prosecutor Chief Sgt Pirika Eafeare on behalf of the two accused women who are mothers with infants. He asked that they have access to their lawyers for a possible bail application.
“Ol mama wantaim liklik pikinini (they are mothers with young children),” he said of Tamara and Rose Walevo who had with her in the courtroom a month-old infant.
But Kapis’ request was denied as the court had already ruled that bail for them all would have to be sought at the National Court.
Magistrate Wakikura said the District Court lacked jurisdiction to consider bail for any of them.
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