Charged, denied bail

By ANTOINETTE POIVI
THE police officer involved in investigating allegations against police commissioner David Manning was arrested, charged and locked up at Boroko Police Station on Wednesday.
Detective Senior Sgt Tinol Pakiapon was denied bail, suspended for 21 days and charged with causing disaffection to the constabulary under the Police Act.
National Capital District Metropolitan Supt Silva Sika said other charges would be added when police were done with their investigations.
“Between March 12 and 15, Sgt Tinol made several allegations against the police commissioner over an alleged incident in 2000,” he said.
“On March 26, a Waigani committal court refused an attempt to get a warrant to arrest the police commissioner.
And on April 15, the National Court dismissed the case.
“As a result of that, the office of the police commissioner felt that he (Pakiapon) was trying to cause disaffection within the police force.” He added that Pakiapon was handed over to the Criminal Investigation Division officers on the complaint from the office of the Police Commissioner.
Sika said during his suspension, Pakiapon was given time to deny or admit to the charge laid against him. “His bail wasn’t granted.
This is in order for the investigations to progress today (yesterday) and have all the formalities done.
“Then I will grant him bail.
If we were to release him, there was no guarantee that he was going to come back to the police station,” Sika added.
Sika said Pakiapon had been told to comply with all processes.
He also appealed to the public to control what they say on social media without understanding what actually happened.