Mum gets 19 years for murder

A KILLING at a night club three years ago has landed a 19-year jail term with hard labour for a single mother.
The National Court sentenced Jason Kanufa, of Goilala, Central, for stabbing to death of Sebastian Auai at a night club in Port Moresby.
Judge Nicholas Miviri at Waigani on Tuesday said Kanufa had no reasonable excuse to kill Auai by stabbing him on his chest with a kitchen knife.
The court learnt that on the night of June 29, 2020, Kanufa and Auai attended a dance at Dark-Street in 6-Mile and at around 4am the next day, a fight brought out.
They all run out of the building and afterwards Kanufa saw Auai and asked him to go and fetch her sister back in the club.
Auai refused which made Kanufa angry and arming herself with a kitchen knife she stabbed him on his chest causing him to bleed to death.
Kanifa pleaded guilty to the offence.
Miviri said a kitchen knife is readily available to any man or woman and stabbing someone on a venerable part of the body is not a light matter.
He added that since the families were interrelated through marriage, they had reconciled and forgave Kanufa of the murder she committed.
He said the reports also showed that she was not a threat to the community and that she could be outside custody on probation.
Miviri said: “In my view, prisoners will not be given suspended sentence without condition.
“Responsibility must be attached to the wrong committed and correction must be made to give effect to the sanction that the law prescribes.
“This is so that it will meaningfully give effect to the punishment as well as reforming the prisoner,” he said.
He then ordered for any time spent in custody to be deduced and she would serve the balance in Bomana prison.