Duo claims assault, abuse by police

 By JEFFREY ELAPA

TWO women have claimed they were sexually assaulted and inhumanly treated by officers of a police unit investigating the recent K6 million robbery in Port Moresby.

Maggi Borari, 21, and her relatives shed tears when describing her rape ordeal, and a married mother of two from Gulf claimed she was inhumanly treated by police last week.

Borari said her relative Kelly Avedi was alleged to be a suspect in the robbery and police went to their home at ATS and arrested the suspect and his sister-in-law, the married mother of two, last Wednesday.

She said policemen involved in the investigation went back a second time to their home at around 2am in a blue Toyota Land Cruiser and searched their home while she was in her room.

She said a relative, a student at the Institute of Business Studies, was in the house at the time.

She said the student was taken out of the house and four policemen started bashing him up in front of the house.

Borari said while that was going on, a policeman with a gun came into her room, put off the light and told her to undress and he started touching her breast.

She said he then ordered her to lie down naked on the bed and warned her if she did not cooperate, she would be taken to the Boroko police cell.

“I was afraid so I did as he ordered me. He then forcefully had sex with me. I was afraid and ashamed so I kept it quiet and did not tell anyone until my relative, a soldier, found out and I told him,” she said. 

A senior police officer, Sgt Tokiong at the police public complaints at 6-Mile Police Station said a formal complaint of the incidents was lodged at the station on Monday.