Court fines man K150 for carrying knife into town

A YOUNG man found guilty of carrying a sword-type knife into the city has been fined K150 by the Mt Hagen District Court.
Magistrate Jacinta Doa found Jacob Kuli, 26, from Tambul district, guilty of carrying an offensive weapon into town.
Kuli was arrested at the Ogulben bus stop in Mt Hagen city on the 9th of this month by police.
He was charged with carrying offensive weapon and detained in the police cell.
“Hagen city is not your garden or village to carry offensive weapon like a long sword knife,” Doa told the defendant.
Doa told him that no one was allowed to carry offensive weapons into city boundary.
She said that the city was a public place where everyone should feel free to move around.
Doa said that it was against the law for anyone to carry offensive weapons such as knives, guns, axes and any other weapons into the city.
Earlier, another magistrate warned people carrying weapons into the city would be dealth with harshly.
Kuli, who pleaded guilty plea during the mention, told the court that the knife was like his brother.
“I leave my brothers in the village and come to city and the knife is like a brother to me for security reasons,” he said.
Doa told him that this was not good enough because he was not in his village or garden to carry knife around.
She found him guilty and ordered him to pay K150 court fine or in default serve 2 months in Baisu jail.
In another case, Rodnney Paul, 27, from Popoka village in the Ialibu district of Southern Highlands denied threatening a policewoman and resisting arrest.
Paul was arrested on the 9th of this month at the Hagen police station and charged with threatening and resisting police arrest.
Police alleged that Paul was having an argument with his wife at the front counter of the police station. Police said that when a duty policewoman tried to attend to their complaint, the defendant told the policewoman that he would finish her from police force.
Police said that when other policemen tried to arrest him for issuing threats, he resisted.
Paul entered a guilty plea but later changed his plea and told the court that the policewoman shamed him in front of other people when she asked him whether he used to have sex with his wife.
He told the court that he didn’t argue with the policewoman but she embarrassed him in front of the public.
Doa adjourned the case to Wednesday for trial.