Court denies man’s appeal for term
review

By PETER MIVA
THE Supreme Court in Lae last Friday denied an application seeking leave to review a 20-year jail sentence on a young Manus man convicted of murder.
Twenty-one-year-old Poyap Posanau was convicted over the Jan 3, 2003 murder Australian Peter Hall, a former Porgera Joint Venture employee.
The Supreme Court bench comprising judges Justice Gibbs Salika, Justice Panuel Mogish and Justice Kingsley David ruled unanimously against the application, ruling there were no merits in it.
Poyap had filed his application outside the 40-day period allowed by the Supreme Court.
Justice Mogish said the prisoner appeared to suggest that he should not have been charged with murder.
“We disagree … we are satisfied that he was initially committed for break- and-enter and stealing,” he said.
“He appeared before Justice Manuhu, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years.
“The incident related to the first occasion where the prisoner and his accomplices entered the house of the deceased at Weybank Street, Aircorps Road and stole his property.”
Justice Mogish said Poyap was committed by the district court on May 7, 2003 on the present murder charge and sent for trial and convicted without objection by the defence counsel on the propriety of the indictment.
Court documents showed that on the night of Jan 2 and in the early hours of Jan 3, 2003, Poyap and his accomplices broke into Hall’s residence and stole the victim’s personal property, then escaped to another location where they consumed the food stuff.
They then returned armed and ransacked the house again. Two of his accomplices entered the bedroom where the deceased was attacked and subsequently murdered.
Another accused, Luxie Lalatute, is currently serving life sentence at the Buimo jail for the murder, while a co-accused Jafford Pare is on the run.