A senior police detective charged with spreading false rumours that led to the raid on fellow senior detectives houses had his case dismissed last week in Port Moresby, police said.
Officer-in-charge of the national drugsquad senior Insp Kapo Lua was charged over false and misleading report tending to cause ill feelings between groups and individuals.
The Court dismissed the charges on the grounds that the wording of charges were wrong and that Mr Lua acted in his capacity as a police officer to provide information that led to the search of his fellow officers’ houses.
The wordings of the charges were under section 11 of the Summary Offence Act when it should have been the wordings of section 58 of the same Act.
The court had ordered his refund of K50 and the uplifting of his suspension.
Mr Lua, 54, from Mapatu village, Abau district in the Central province was earlier on charged with spreading false rumours.
It was alledged that an AR-15, AK rifle and Sig-9mm pistol that were issued to the now disbanded national crime squad (NCS) had been stolen by former crime director chief Insp Victor Isouve, former NCS officer-in-charge senior Insp Lincoln Gerari and Insp Sengi Laki formerly attached to NCS.
Based on Mr Lua’s information, armed police officers with a search warrant went and raided Mr Isouve’s house at Tokam Barracks at about 6am on Jan 10 in search of the firearms.
They also raided and searched for these firearms at Mr Gerari’s house at Bomana Police College and Mr Laki’s house at Games Barracks.