Charged over burning of house

A 46-YEAR-OLD man was charged in the Vanimo district court with arson for allegedly razing the house of West Sepik administrator Conrad Tilau on June 3.
Senior Magistrate Sasa Inkung read out three charges of arson to Samuel Kime from West Sepik’s Green River on Wednesday and fixed Aug 6 for hearing.
The fire razed Tilau’s house in Dasi and destroyed his wife’s two vehicles. Magistrate Inkung said Kime was accused of planning to burn Tilau’s house with four others and he transported them (his accomplices) to Dasi at about 3.30am.
“After dropping them, he went to Silung club,” he said.
“He then returned after the house was up in flames, picked up his accomplices and shouted at the crowd that was watching the house on fire saying yupla kam na mipla kisim wara (come and let’s drink beer )”.
Kime was arrested as the main suspect while the four accomplices were on the run.
Kime has a pending cybercrime case before the Vanimo National Court.
He was committed by the district court to stand trial in the National Court for allegedly stealing financial documents of logging operations in West Sepik and posting them on Facebook.
He allegedly stole the documents from the provincial administration office.
Kime was out on bail when he allegedly got involved in razing Tilau’s house.
Magistrate Inkung remanded Kime while the court reviewed his bail condition.
Tilau said he was in Port Moresby attending the provincial and local level government service monitory authority workshop when his house and vehicles were razed.
“I was shocked and thankful that no one was hurt in the fire,” he said.
“My daughter with her husband and our security guard were in the house when the house was set ablaze. All our valuables, documents were lost in the fire.”