Man gets nine years for murder

AN Enga villager, who slashed a woman and also attacked a police station with a gun in January last year, was jailed with hard labour for nine years.
On a charge of wilful damage, Wabag National Court judge Justice Graham Ellis sentenced Mambol Lenganu, a father of a three-year-old child to imprisonment with hard labour for two years while seven years on a second charge for causing grievous bodily harm.
The judge ordered the sentences to run consecutively, deducting 10 months that he had been in custody.
According to the facts, the woman was in her Tipinini village gardens at about 6am on Jan 28, 2009, to harvest produce for sale at the market.
She then went on to the main highway waiting for a PMV when she saw Lenganu carrying a rifle with two men wielding bush knives.
Lenganu grabbed one of the bush knives and without saying anything, slashed her several times.
The woman tried to stop Lenganu by calling out his name but her pleas were ignored.
The woman, a relative of Lenganu, collapsed and was left lying on the ground unconscious.
She was taken to the hospital in Mulitaka where she was admitted for two months.
Justice Ellis said: “When provided the opportunity, neither counsel wished to ask the woman any questions. As I have said, the presence of the victim did not add to what appeared in her statement but her presence did bring to life the reality of the permanent disability she suffered as a result of this incident.”
Her right foot was disabled during the attack.
The court also heard that, four days after the attacked, Lenganu made his way into a police station to free his detained relatives.