Court to rule on Kalaut’s arrest today

By BEVERLY PETER
THE National Court will rule today whether arresting and committing former assistant police commissioner Sylvester Kalaut for allegedly misappropriating more than K900,000 was legal or not.
This followed Kalaut’s application through his lawyer David Dotaona at Waigani yesterday asking the court to dismiss his charge and acquit him saying his arrest was defective as the policeman who arrested Kalaut was not a police officer but a civilian.
Dotaona said: “We sought court’s order to declare that Koani Arua Tarupa was not a sworn member of the Papua New Guinea Royal Constabulary and to act as one to arrest Kalaut was illegal, and the indictment complied is defective.”
It was before the Court that there was no dispute that Tarupa was dismissed as a policeman in 2005 and reinstated in Feb 2020 by the Police Commissioner David Manning.
Dotaona said Tarupa’s reinstatement was through a letter Manning wrote to him stating his resumption but there was no formal gazette publishing his reappointment.
“A member of police force must make an oath and their appointment, reappointment and reinstatement must be published in the gazette according to procedure in the Police Act,” he said.
The State argued that Manning had appointed an investigator on the case, Tarupa was a policeman, the indictment was made lawfully and Kalaut’s application should be dismissed.
“Manning as police commissioner with the authority vested had appointed Tarupa through a letter to show his reinstatement,” State said.
The Stated added that failure to publish Tarupa’s reinstatement on the gazette was an administrative issue and was not of substantial.
Kalaut and his accomplice Bobby Visikela Kerry, who was the former police human resource director, were committed to stand trial for allegedly misappropriating K948,815.67 belonging to the PNG Royal Constabulary under police pension account.
It was alleged that the money was not transferred to the retirees that time because some of their accounts were dormant.
Between Nov 2, 2018 and Nov 6, 2019, Kalaut and Kerry allegedly changed the two signatories to the pension account and allegedly approved 156 cheques totalling K948,815.6 for reasons other than pension payment.