Plea to take body home

The family of a prison remandee who died has called for the state assistance to repatriate his body home to Hela.
The late James Tinai, 47, from Benarai village in Komo-Hulia are calling on the government for assistance as he was awaiting his court appearance at the time of his death.
Family member Oxi Alungi said the deceased was remanded at Bomana prison for one year and was awaiting committal court hearing when he died on Aug 17.
Alungi said the prisoner was arrested at Moro on Oct 7, 2022 and was brought to Bomana. His body is at the Port Moresby General Hospital mortuary.
“We wrote to Bomana Correctional Services (CS) for them to help us repatriate the body but they advised us that the CS could not do anything because the deceased was in the custody of police before passing on,” he said.
“We then wrote letters to assistant commissioner of police (crimes) but there was no good response from his office for two months.”
Assistant police commissioner, crimes, Hodges Ette said the deceased was involved in the kidnapping of the Santos Ltd workers in Hela and was arrested and brought to Port Moresby.
Ette said the deceased died while awaiting his court appearance.
He explained that the police force only has money to repatriate bodies of its members.
“If we try to use money to repatriate anybody outside of the police force, we can be arrested and charged for misappropriation,” he said.
“We don’t have money set aside for repatriating bodies outside of the police force.”
He said a requisition was sent to his office after the family went to commander NCD’s office and raised that.
“I did not receive the approval so I cannot spend money from the department’s budget process,” he said.
He added that the deceased did not tell anyone of his pre-existing sickness, HIV AIDS, when he was apprehended.
He said CS people found out about his sickness and had put him under medication.
“But he refused to take further medication,” he said.