Evidence by Yama is false, says lawyer

LAWYERS assisting Bank South Pacific in the garnishee proceedings of Madang businessman Peter Yama against Motor Vehicle Insurance Limited, (MVIL), regarding the judgment debt of K7.6 million testified before the Waigani National Court last Friday.
Mr Yama was seeking to obtain K7.6 million, a payment ordered by a recent Supreme Court decision for MVIL to pay Yama Security Services (YSS), for breach of contract.
But BSP stepped in to claim some of the money for “fix-floating charges” against Mr Yama and his companies.
Lawyer assisting BSP, Greg Egen, contended in court that Mr Yama’s evidence in the National Court, denying signing some fix-floating charges with the bank, was false.
Mr Egen told Justice Bernard Sakora that the fix-floating charges created by BSP against Yama group of companies on May 6, 1999, were not forged, as claimed by Mr Yama.
“Mr Yama had changed the whole thing, and made a different story altogether because evidences reveal that Mr Yama had signed his signatures on the fix-floating charges,” he said.
Mr Yama’s counsel, Philip Ame, claimed his client had never signed any fix-floating charges with the bank since 1999.
Mr Ame claimed that several of Mr Yama’s companies had been in receivership since 2001 and were restricted from accessing their respective bank accounts.
However, Mr Egen said BSP records proved Mr Yama had conducted several activities with his bank accounts in 2001 and 2002.
He said Mr Yama had admitted during the trial that the signature in the fix-floating charges was his, which he later claimed  was forged from earlier documents.
Meanwhile, The Australian newspaper reported at the weekend that BSP lawyers were threatened by armed thugs, believed to be linked with Mr Yama’s case.
The report said a lawyer from Gadens Lawyers was allegedly threatened at gunpoint.
Mr Yama told The National: “I know nothing about this, and how did a foreign newspaper get such stories and publish them without facts?”