Drug bust 3 denied bail

The National Main Stories

By BOURA GORUKILA
A COURT has refused bail for three men facing charges relating to last month’s K160 million drug bust outside Port Moresby because police investigations are yet to be completed.
Acting judge Justice Paul Tusais told Dominic Telauki Terupa, 34, of Mortlock in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Morgan Mogu, 35, of Abau in Central and Shane Dikana, 31, of Lealea village, Kairuku-Hiri, Central that they could re-apply for bail when police had submitted their case to the court.
“I will refuse bail at this time as police are still doing their investigations, however you are at liberty to re-apply for bail once police investigations are completed and a hand-up brief is served at the committal court,” Justice Tusais said.
He warned police on Monday to stop harassing and abusing people in their custody after Terupa and Mogu claimed in their affidavits that police took them out of their cells at night, drove them around Port Moresby, threatened and assaulted them.
Justice Tusais told Terupa, Mogu and Dikana that he could not grant them bail because there was a likelihood that they could interfere with State witnesses, or interfere with the large amount of items yet to be recovered from the attempted drug smuggling case.
The cocaine bust was discovered on July 26 at Papa Lealea when an aircraft which had arrived from Australia the same day without clearance crashed when it tried to take off with more than 600kg of cocaine.
The three will appear in court today for a hearing.
Also appearing with them is the aircraft pilot David John Cutmore, 52, of Australia and yacht owner Carlos Attanasio, 52, of Italy for their alleged involvement in the same drug bust.

9 comments

  • Agree with the judge. This is an international drug ring and should not be taken lightly.

  • This is a international crime. It doesn’t involve the locals only: Italy, Australia and world over. Don’t ever take it light and never bail this drug porters because what will happen next they get disappeared by being killed by syndicate business owners so as to avoid being found and that’s always the trend in this kind of business.

  • Amazingly these guys arrested don’t come from one place. They are probably the key man from different locations who came together to execute this major export of cocaine;

    1. Mortlock in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville
    2. Abau
    3. Lealea.
    Guys see the connection of 3 different guys to where they come from and how they could have been caught of the same crime. There must be some connection between them.

  • Given the nature of the crime involving apparently an international syndicate this is uncharted waters for our RPNGC grateful for the involvement of the AFP and support the Judges decision in this sense.

    Urging all citizens both corporate and individuals to support our RPNGC and AGO efforts to bring this matter to a close successfully.

  • That crime hasn’t took someone’s life.
    We don’t worry too much about this drug burst because the suspects are in court now. Anyway the concerning crime is when those arrogants killers kill our own citizens without any good reason.
    Are we right in our head….come on png lets take action to care and protective every human life regardless of culture or religion.
    The bottom line is that we are ” All BLACK / BROWN “

  • Let the investigation unfold the true identity of the main culprits behind this syndicate. Tbe three caught are just window dressers.

  • It’s a good decision made by the court since the police have not completed their investigations. Those men involved in drug bust, now in custody should be severely punished.

    I don’t what the foreign men involved in drug bust doing right now. They should be changed under PNG law jurisdictions and we are not aware of how they are?

  • What happened to the ring leader or the other suspect a businessman said was involved ?

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