Justice not served

JUSTICE Bernard Sakora’s decision on convicted escapee William Kapris is most surprising in its leniency.
One would have expected a harsher punishment for the man who might well be the mastermind behind the MRO robbery as well as the ones he is yet to face trial over relating to two bank robberies.
Sakora chose to sentence Kapris to only five years imprisonment, subtracting two of those for time served already in jail and suspending the other three.
His reasons are that Kapris has been made a “scapegoat” and that, in the judge’s considered judgment, the bigger criminals might still be at large.
The judge has arrived at this conclusion on the basis of the convict’s allegations in court and on the MRO surveillance camera recording showing the actions of the criminals during the night of the robbery.
Leniency in the sentence has also been dictated by the prisoner’s admittance of the crime and on the non-violent nature of the robbery.
We do not agree with his honour on this.
Here is a criminal who has a police record of past run-ins with the law including escaping from lawful custody.
He has been involved in a K2 million robbery, which was ingeniously conceived and executed, that has most other criminal minds dreaming of pulling off a similar crime. Copycat crimes are not unknown of and the judge has just made this one a most attractive proposition by his very lenient sentencing.
He claims that his judgment is a deterrent but he must surely consider that it is also an encouraging precedent for those others who might want to engage in similar crimes.
All one has to do is pull off a major robbery without applying violence and, when caught, be very cooperative with police and the courts and you are likely to get off with a very light sentence.
The case of Kapris vs the people will be cited as a precedent.
Then, there is the more troubling spectre of the innuendos and inferences that could be drawn by the judge’s pronouncement that the bigger criminals might yet be at large.
Kapris has named three politicians as being the principle beneficiaries of his crimes. Although suspended Finance and Treasury Minister Patrick Pruaitch and Correctional Services Minister Tony Aimo have denied the prisoner’s accusations, they stand named as accomplices or beneficiaries.
The judge’s ruling immediately impacts them as well as all the others Kapris has named, MRO employees employed in the drama and others who might yet be at large.
We concur with the comments by chairman of parliamentary bipartisan committee on Ombudsman Commission, Moses Maladina, that the judge should not have made comments pre-empting or presuming guilt upon people who are yet to appear and have their day in court.
Such comments go against the basic principles of fair justice applicable in this country that persons are innocent until proven guilty in court.
Maladina is right. Those who are still at large are yet to be arrested, charged and have their day in court.
It is not for Sakora to judge whether Kapris is a “sacrificial lamb” in this whole affair or not. His is to judge Kapris on the strength of evidence before him and the nature of the man’s crime.
The prisoner might have cooperated with police and the courts but, to our mind, he had little other option.
Kapris is named in the MRO robbery and the two bank robberies. He would appear to be the central figure. The three robberies go down as the most daring, most calculated and brilliantly executed.
To let Kapris go scot-free is not deterrent at all. Indeed, it is encouragement for crimes of this nature in future. 
What if it is found, when all the many unanswered questions are finally answered, that it was Kapris who was the mastermind of all three robberies after all. The judge is not likely to recall Kapris back and re-sentence him. That would be double-jeopardy, wouldn’t it?
This sentence is a most dangerous precedent indeed.