Hetinu asks to pay fine

FORMER National Capital District (NCD) election manager Terence Hetinu has proposed in his submission on penalty that he is willing to pay a fine to the State if imposed by the Court as a substitute for imprisonment.
His lawyer Desmond Kipa also submitted to the Waigani National Court on Friday that Hetinu be jailed two to four years and the sentence be wholly suspended because he was a widower and his children were likely to suffer.
Hetinu was convicted last Nov 2 for corruptly receiving K184,300 from a candidate to influence the outcome of the election for the NCD regional seat in the 2017 general election.
Kipa further submitted that Hetinu was caught before committing any act that would interfere with the election process and that he did not benefit from the crime.
“Hetinu did not use any of the money found in his possession.
“The deed entered between the prisoner and the candidate did not specify any sum. The amount of money involved was significant.
“However, the entire money was confiscated by the police. There was no evidence of how much Hetinu was to receive from the amount found in his possession,” Kipa said.
State lawyer Samantha Mosoro argued that this case was serious as the potential damage that could have been done through ‘rigging’ election results could have been substantial for the electors or voters.
State submitted for three to four years imprisonment with hard labour.
It further submitted that a custodial sentence as a deterrent would be appropriate, especially as a general deterrence now that the country was about to hold a general election.
Mosoro stated among other aggravating factors that Hetinu had breached trust by accepting such an amount of money in an attempt to bribe polling officials and to influence the outcome of the election. After hearing submissions, Justice Theresa Berrigan extended Hetinu’s bail and fixed April 19 for the court to hand down its decision on sentence.
According to the brief facts, on June 27, 2017, some polling officials in NCD refused to take up their polling stations that morning due to the non-payment of their camping allowances for the general election.
Electoral commissioner (then) Patilias Gamato and Hetinu met at Gamato’s house to discuss the issue.
Gamato deferred the election to June 30, 2017, on the advice of then NCD Met Supt Benjamin Turi.
Sometime later on June 27, 2017, Hetinu was arrested by police after driving away from an angry crowd at the China Town polling station at East Boroko. Hetinu was in possession of K184,300 in cash, together with a signed memorandum of agreement (MoA).
The MoA was between NCD regional candidate Michael Kandiu, Hetinu and Willie Winstand Ipuia, the coordinator or electoral agent for the Moresby North-East electorate for NCD.
During the trial, the court heard that under the MoA, the parties agreed to “do such acts from time-to-time that shall cause or give effect to” the election of Kandiu for the NCD regional seat.
In return, Kandiu agreed to give Hetinu and Ipuia an undisclosed amount of money to be disbursed between them.
The court heard that in the event of Kandiu’s election, Hetinu was to be awarded all security contracts with the NCD Commission for a period of five years.
During Gamato’s daily press conference at 3pm on June 27, 2017, he told reporters that he was aware of the cash as some arrangements had been made to try to organise payments for outstanding camping allowances.
The court found that there were 370 polling teams comprising 2,590 polling officials in NCD in 2017.