Judge not happy with witness who had nothing to say

By JAMES GUMUNO
WITNESSES coming into the court room must know the matter well, Mt Hagen District Court magistrate Lydia Karre said yesterday.
She told the court that the complainant and defendant must make sure that their witnesses were fully aware of the case and knew what to tell the court when they were called.
She said this when witness Jacob Rapu, of the complainant Smith Kamba, was asked to give his story.
He told the court that he didn’t know what to say.
Rapu identified only Smith as a colleague from the same employer and didn’t say anything further. The complainant, in the Enga language, told his witness what to tell the court but the defendant, Nelson Watai, who was also in the courtroom, intervened and objected.
Watai, who is also from Enga, told the court that the complainant could not tell the witness what to say.
Magistrate Karre said that it was not the duty of the court to tell the witness what to tell the court.
She said the witness must prepare well before going into the courtroom to testify.