Kuipa: I am guilty as charged

ENGAN Helen Mark Kuipa last Friday pleaded guilty to helping 12 criminals escape from Bomana jail’s maximum security unit on Jan 12.
Kuipa, who posed as a human rights lawyer to gain access to the maximum security area, appeared before Justice Ere Kariko at the Waigani National Court.
She will reappear in court tomorrow to reconfirm her guilty plea and forgo an earlier claim in court that she was threatened into taking part in the crime.
She claimed in her affidavit that she “was kidnapped while visiting my sick brother in the Tusa private clinic in Lae and flown to Port Moresby on the same day ”.
When Kuipa appeared in court in the morning  Kariko asked her if she was guilty of the charges which were read out to her.
She replied: “Yes, your honour”.
She was read her charges that contravened section 138(a) of the Criminal Code.
They included details from when she flew to Port Moresby from Lae on Dec 28, 2009.
On Jan 1, 2010, she had, with the assistance of her accomplices, made bookings to hire a car from Kekam Hire Cars. On Jan 11 she had, with other accomplices, gone to the Kekam Hire Cars and picked up a blue utility, a Toyota Hilux.
Lawyer Marianne Zurenuoc from the public prosecutors office said: “This accused and one of her accomplices, named Hanz, went to the Bomana jail where she produced a letter and told a lone warder at the security gate that she was a human rights lawyer coming to see her two clients. Then, she and Hanz drove straight to the MSU, where she told a prison warder she was a human rights lawyer, Judy Nandape, to see her clients, Greg Wawa and John Siko Wel.”
She was informed that she could be allowed to see only one prisoner (at a time). So, she asked to see John Siko Wel, to whom she had produced a firearm .38 calibre pistol. The gun was in one compartment of a bag she was carrying, which she lay sideways for Wel to see and he withdrew the firearm.
Armed with the pistol, Wel held up two prison-warders. He ordered them to go and free the 12 MSU inmates among them  rapist, attempted murderer and escapee William Nanua Kapris, who had been charged with a series of bank robberies and was awaiting trial.
Zurenuoc said: “All prisoners got into the waiting vehicle, along with the accused and the driver, they drove up to Sogeri and the foothills of the Kokoda Track, where they dispersed into the bushes and jungles of the Koiari mountains and along the Magi Highway until their arrests.”
Kuipa had returned to Port Moresby and was arrested at the Talai settlement, Badili.
When Kuipa admitted being “guilty”, Zurenuoc handed up the file on the matter which included 25 witnesses’ affidavits and her confession statement that included scenic indications which showed 53 pictures of sites where she and her accomplices began and ended their plans to free the 12 prisoners – from Lae to Jackson Airport and up to the MSU in Bomana, then being on the run from the authorities.
Kariko adjourned to 2pm to read and comprehend the entire affidavits on file, two of which were in Tok Pisin and lengthy.
Reconvening, the hearing at 2pm last Friday, Kariko pointed out to the defence counsel Leslie Mamu, if his client (Kuipa) was taking the “guilty” plea and foregoing her chances to “defence of compulsion”.
The judge pointed out that in the earlier part of Kuipa’s statement, she had mentioned that she was “threatened” using the whereabouts of her family members, to compel her to do as she was allegedly ordered to do by her accomplices who master-minded the entire operation.
The matter was adjourned to tomorrow for Kuipa to further liaise with her lawyers from the public solicitor’s office to determine and confirm her pleas.