Court acquits Neil ‘Diamond’ Arikawa

THE Waigani Committal Court yesterday struck out the case of Neil “Diamond” Arikawa of Yagirua village, Tufi in Northern, saying that there was a case of identity issue.
And the “Neil” referred to, in affidavits presented to the court, was identified witnesses as just Neil from Central.
Yesterday, presiding magistrate Fred Tomo said: “There is a big difference between Central and Oro (Northern province)”.
In his ruling following Arikawa’s lawyer’s submissions to the court, which argued that there was “insufficient evidence” against the accused to commit him to stand trial at the National Court, Tomo yesterday upheld this stance and struck out the matter.
He said the person mentioned in the supporting affidavits included in the police file handed up to the court identified the accused involved in the “aiding of prisoners to escape” from the Bomana MSU to be named as just Neil with no other names attached.
Accompanying this was the “contradicting evidence” of two witnesses’ affidavits which stated: Firstly that the accused was picked up from Gerehu Stage 6, from where the accused and his accomplices had gone to the Morobe Transit Lodge to a room 10 where they had held up and detained prison warder Sgt Abiang Kera.
But another witness’ affidavit stated that they had (several accomplices including Arikawa) had come down from their meeting camp at 8-Mile and had gone to the Morobe Transit Lodge where the crime of holding up Kera was committed.
Arikawa, 29, who has been remanded at the Bomana jail for about eight months since March this year was charged with “aiding prisoners to escape” from the Bomana maximum security unit (MSU) on Jan 12.
While striking out the matter yesterday, Tomo also stated that the prosecution still had the powers to invoke the ex-officio indictment to commit the accused if they had sufficient evidence.