Investigator explains delay in assisting coroner

THE police investigator who collated the files leading to the coroner’s inquiry into the suspicious death of Rex Wanzing has testified yesterday.
Homicide squad officer-in-charge Sgt Nei Pige informed the panel that the suspicious death of 14-year-old while undergoing surgery at the Port Moresby General Hospital last year was registered to the homicide office in August last year.
“It took me six months to carry out my investigation and gather all necessary information so that a coroner’s inquiry can be conducted,” he said.
Pige said the case was registered as medical negligence on directives from the Coroner’s Court and the PMGH director health services Dr Kone Sobi.
Port Moresby District Court Magistrate Josephine Kilage, who was presiding on the panel, asked Pige why the investigation had taken six months. Pige said then PMGH senior pathologist Dr Seth Fose’s medical report on Wanzing’s death had come in late and so he had filed all available information to serve to the doctors and the prosecution.
Former chief justice Sir Arnold Amet asked Pige if he had followed up with the independent inquiry report as it was an important document that had to be presented before the panel.
“I did my police investigations and the independent inquiry report was for the State to present to the panel.”
He said a week after the complaint was lodged by the Wanzing’s parents he brought a letter to Dr Sobi because he needed the statements of the doctors to carry out the investigation.
“After a week, I received the documents from the hospital, I checked through but there was no affidavit but charts with the names of the doctors so I used the charts to make lists of the witnesses,” he said.