Arson suspects facing court

ANOTHER man appeared in the Vanimo District Court for alleged involvement in burning down West Sepik administrator Conrad Tilau’s house in Vanimo, senior Magistrate Sasa Inkung says.
“Bruce Yarikawa, 61, from Passam village in Wewak, East Sepik, is the second person suspected of razing Tilau’s house at Dasi in Vanimo on June 3 at about 3.30am. He was accused of planning with four others to burn Tilau’s house and transporting other suspects to Dasi.
After dropping them, he went to Silung Club, returning after the house was up in flames and picked them up before escaping.
The fire also burnt Tilau’s wife’s two vehicles.
Yarikawa appeared in court yesterday charged with three counts of arson and will appear on Sept 19 from custody.
Magistrate Inkung said the first suspect, Samuel Kime, 46, from Green River in West Sepik, who faced similar charges, appeared in court on July 7.
Kime and Yarikawa were accused of planning and transporting four other co-accused to Dasi to burnt Tilau’s house.
Magistrate Inkung said Kime would appear in court on Aug 6.
“They were arrested and charged by the police during this ongoing investigation while their co-accused are still on the run,” he said.
Kime still has a case pending in the National Court under the Cybercrime Act.
He was committed with sufficient evidence to stand trial before the National Court for allegedly stealing financial documents of logging operations in the province and posting them on Facebook. He allegedly stole the documents from the provincial administration office.