Officers facing robbery charges

By MARJORIE FINKEO
FIVE police officers are facing charges of armed robbery and damaging property after they allegedly stormed into a liquor outlet in Port Moresby and took cartons of beer, cash and cigarettes.
Baisy Aiyu, Kennan Rim, Paul George, Bobby Kava and Essau Valu appeared before Magistrate Alex Kalandi at the Waigani District Court.
They are with the Badili police support unit except for Valu who is with the police band.
Magistrate Kalandi adjourned the matter to Aug 1 and granted them a K1000 bail each. They had already paid K300.
He gave them one week to pay the other K700. It is alleged that on April 1, 13 armed policemen drove into the liquor outlet premises and broke open the locks at the gate.
They fired shots and took K301,903 in cash, 3237 cartons of beer plus other alcoholic drinks.
They also damaged a CCTV camera but another camera they did not touch recorded what they were doing. The court was told that the officers were under the influence of alcohol and left the area headed in different directions – to Boroko, Gordon, Erima, 9-Mile and 6-Mile.
The court also heard that the general manager of the company had tried to explain to the officers the business operation but they ignored him.