Court allowing confession in trial murder

The National Court has dismissed an objection filed through a notice of voir dire which challenged the record of interview by police during investigations into the death of former Kundiawa-Gembogl MP Peter Waieng.
It was filed on behalf of two people charged with murder. Seviro Ganiga and Ray Atabe applied for voir dire on Sept 9, 2015.
They asked the court to remove from the evidence a handwritten record of interview dated Augt 25 and Oct 17, 2013. The application was filed on the grounds that the applicants’ confessions were induced by physical and verbal threats, the accused were not given the right to exercise their constitutional rights to speak to a lawyer and they were not represented by a lawyer during the interview.
Their lawyer submitted that they were subjected to intimidation and coercion and were made scapegoats because of pressure from police headquarters.
Justice Panel Mogish ruled that he accepted the pressure was placed on the hierarchy at police headquarters and the investigation team led by Ulagis Mantu to thoroughly investigate the case.
“The pressure was coming from the relatives of the deceased and I do not find this unusual,” he said.
Mogish said that was unusual for the complainants regarding the conduct and progress would be made to senior officers in the police force.
“This was what happened in this case with the appointment of Mantu, who is an experience officer, and I do not think he would go down low to assault the accused to obtain confession or admissions in the record of interview,” he said.
Mogish accepted the state witness evidence in the voir dire to be credible and reliable and dismissed the objections.
He ordered to allow as evidence the confessions made by Ganiga and Atabe’ to police in 2013. Both accused pleaded not guilty to wilful murder.
They were alleged to have committed the crime at Roku village, in Central, on Aug 22, 2013.