Kapris footage release a serious breach

FOOTAGE of what appears to be the interview of top bank robbery suspect William Nanua Kapris by police is causing a buying frenzy on the streets of Port Moresby.
DVD and VCD copies of the interview are selling for K50, K100, K200 and even K2,000 a copy.
It just depends on who is selling and who is buying.
A number of people are implicated in the footage. By this, we mean that Kapris has made very serious allegations against these people.
They include four Members of Parliament; three of them ministers.
Kapris has alleged in the interview that these politicians have provided money in aid of two bank robberies that he had pulled off successfully, in Kerema and Madang.
In the interview, he told police that he had given at least two of the MPs some of the loot from one robbery, and was in the processing of distributing the loot from the second robbery when he was caught.
The allegations are very damaging, so damaging that when The National first reported the existence of the video and the allegations in it made by Kapris, we were referred to the Parliamentary Privileges Committee by Member for Angoram and Minister for Public Enterprises, Arthur Somare.
The referral has since been withdrawn, but the video exists together with the allegations and is now in the public domain.
In our view, a very serious breach has occurred that not only undermines the carriage of justice, but one which potentially exposes the State to damages.
The conduct of the constabulary in filming this interview of this suspect needs to be questioned.
Is this the legal and proper thing to do?
Was it a deliberate act by police to “leak” the video footage to the media, and now to the public?
If the police did not film this interview, who did?
Was police headquarters, and especially Police Commissioner Gari Baki and his legal experts made aware of this?
From the information we have, this appear not to be the case.
Was the filming, duplication and circulation of this footage the work of a rogue cop? If so, this personnel needs to be identified and made to account.
The Kapris interview is just that; an interview that is yet to be corroborated, to be further investigated by the police investigating team.
The releasing of this material to the public has now seriously undermined this confidential police investigation.
The names of the individuals Kapris has made allegations against is widely known, and they can rightly feel aggrieved because people will be drawing conclusions after viewing the footage.
Mr Baki has quite a task at hand to get to the bottom of this.
If one or two of his officers have deliberately set out to compromise the work of police, they should be weeded out and punished.
We cannot take this issue lightly.
Police investigations into serious crimes, the manner in which these investigations are conducted, the successful prosecution of these cases, the timely completion of police handout briefs so cases are prosecuted before our courts, the availability of prosecutors and witnesses, all these go to the heart of our ability and seriousness in addressing law and order issues in this country.
Papua New Guinea will be viewed in bad light if our ability to address law and order issues, to deliver justice to our own citizens and anyone else who cares to visit, is questioned.
PNG will be considered a bad place to invest, to come and live and work in, if our police and justice system is insecure and unpredictable.
The release of the police interview of this person accused of some very serious crime would do more damage than good to the way our police carry out their constitutional duties.
We believe this to be the work of people who, if they are still in the Royal PNG Constabulary, should be identified and weeded out.