Leaders urged to execute warrants

 By DEMAS TIEN
SENIOR judge Justice Panuel Mogish has urged community leaders in Central to assist police and the courts to bring criminals and suspects on bench warrants to court.
Mogish told local people at Kwikila last Friday during a court user forum that law and order issues involved communities.
He said the issue of bench warrants was a problem because there were about 4000 outstanding cases in the country.
He said in Central, the court issued 48 bench warrants of which 23 were executed.
From the 23, 12 cases were dealt with and the remaining 11 would be dealt with in September. He said some of the warrants were issued by the courts about 20 years ago.
Mogish promised those on bench warrants that if they voluntarily appeared in court, he would extend their bail, but increase the amount and involve guarantors instead of sending them to prison.
“I was told that some of them are still living in the communities and others are deceased. But confirmation is yet to be made,” Mogish said.
“Once we embark on this exercise, the criminals will know that we will not sleep until we get all of them into the system again.
“We no longer rely on police to execute bench warrants because police have their own problems.”
Suggestions were made by leaders that using photographs of the suspects on bench warrants would assist the community apprehending them.