Murderers win appeals and see sentences cut

By JAMES GUMUNO
THE Supreme Court has reduced the sentences of three men serving life imprisonment for murder following appeals.
A four-man Supreme Court bench in Mt Hagen yesterday agreed to review the sentences imposed by the National Court in 2014 on Jerry Mosua, 30, and John Samuel, 36, of Hintekrufi village in Kainantu, Eastern Highlands.
In a separate case, appellant Chris Webster Weipun, who was sentenced by the National Court in Lae on July 27, 2016, to 50 years in jail on a wilful murder charge had his sentence reduced to 30 years, with hard labour.
In the case of Mosua and Samuel, Judge Mogish Panuel, Judge Kangwia Lawerence, Judge Koeget Danajo and Judge Anis Thomas said the trial judge had not taken into account the accuseds’ guilty plea and their cooperation with the police. The two men had argued that their two co-accused, who had not pleaded guilty initially, were also given life
sentences which they deemed unfair.
Justice Panuel told the two appellants that the Supreme Court recognised their guilty plea and their cooperation with police.
He said their two co-accused sentence to life imprisonment on the same wilful murder charge had pleaded not guilty at first, and it took the court three days to hear their case before finding them guilty.
Justice Panuel told the two men that since they had saved the court’s time, their sentences would now be 35 years in jail.
The National Court in Goroka had imposed the life sentences on them on Oct 21, 2014.