Luma appears before commital court

 By ELIAS NANAU

SUSPENDED Works secretary Joel Luma appeared briefly before magistrate Cosmas Bidar last Thursday at the Waigani Committal Court and had his case adjourned for another two weeks.

Luma has been charged with 51 counts of dishonestly applying funds and one count each of conspiracy, official corruption, abuse of office and false pretence.

Police prosecutor Ambrose Gilio said Luma’s lawyers have moved a motion for Bidar to disqualify himself and allow another magistrate to preside over the case.

A decision on this will be made when Luma returns to court on April 4.

Bidar has extended his bail and adjourned the case to April 15.

Meanwhile, chief accountant of parliament Charles Aopi also appeared before Bidar charged with stealing, forgery and uttering.

Police have withdrawn one charge relating to misappropriation of K330,220 and are only pursuing a charge of stealing K150,000 . The other charges are forgery and uttering.

The case had been adjourned to May 3.

Aopi’s arrest was a result of the Task Force Sweep investigations into alleged corrupt practices in the government institutions.

Meanwhile, a man charged with misappropriation of state money, asked the court last week to strike out his case after three months had lapsed.

Magistrate Bidar did not consider the request but told Peter Tokunai: “It’s not a requirement of law, it’s a practice.”