Former top cops Kalaut, Kerry free

NATIONAL Court has freed former assistant police commissioner Sylvester Kalaut and former Police Department human resource manager Bob Visikela Kerry from their misappropriation charge yesterday.
Judge George Manuhu at Waigani discharged Kalaut and Kerry after finding that the money (K948,815.67) alleged to have been misappropriated was not used dishonestly.
“I find that there is no evidence at this stage that Kalaut and Kerry acted dishonestly when they authorised the funds from the suspense account to be used as alleged,” Manuhu said.
He said the State supported their submission with evidence but in order to establish the element of dishonesty, the actual expenditure was the smoking gun in the misappropriation case.
“Procedural breaches would raise eyebrows but there won’t be enough evidence to establish the element of dishonesty intent.
“Prosecution focused on procedural breaches and gave little or no attention to the actual expenditures, maybe because the expenditures were genuine,” he said.
Manuhu said the investigation report showed that K48,546 of the K948,815.67 from the police’s suspense account was used to pay gratuity to two police officers but there was no evidence to show that those two police officers were not entitled to it and was not charged.
“The other sum of K519,863.83 of that money was used to carry out nationwide audit and the formal report of the audit was tendered into evidence.
Judge Manuhu added that the audit Kalaut conducted benefited the Police Department and not Kalaut.
“There is no evidence that Kalaut and Kerry benefited from expenses,” Manuhu said.
He said the funds were used to pay for the travelling allowances of the officers.