Judge: State failed to prove murder charge

By JULIA DAIA BORE
A MAN charged with wilful murder in Madang in 2009 has been freed because of a lack of evidence.
Alphonse Arugani, was found not guilty by Justice David Cannings on Sept 15.
Cannings said he agreed with the defence lawyer’s submission that there was no evidence to corroborate the state’s case, which was based almost entirely on the identification of Arugani as being at Finch Road in the early hours of Friday, Feb 13, 2009.
“In light of the deficiencies in the identification evidence, some corroboration was required. There was none, so the state’s case has inevitably collapsed,” Cannings ruled.
Arugani, from Bogia in Madang, had been charged with the murder of Brian Kati, a 26-year-old man.
The offence was said to have been committed on Finch Road in the Newtown area of Madang town in the early hours of Friday, February 13, 2009.
The state prosecutors held that Arugani had wilfully killed Kati by stabbing him or by helping the person who did.
The court was told that there had been bad blood between Arugani and Kati because the latter’s adulterous affair with and eventual marriage to  Arugani’s first wife.
Arugani had denied the charge.
Cannings noted that the state’s case depended substantially on identification evidence of a friend of Kati who had been drinking with him shortly before the incident.
He told police that he had gone to the aid of Kati and identified one of the two men who allegedly attacked him as Arugani.
The defence had maintained throughout that Arugani, who gave a sworn evidence, was at home, 500m away, asleep with his family.
His wife and sister-in-law vouched for that.
The case was heard in Madang between Aug 16-25.