Police transport woes have wider ramifications
IT is preposterous that the entire Police Department does not have a single working vehicle to transport prisoners from Bomana, just 12km away, along a double-lane sealed highway to the Waigani court house to have their day in court.
Is the police force bankrupt?
Forget the major police operations around the country? If the force cannot properly investigate, prepare its files and prosecute the offenders it has already arrested, what is the use of going after those in the bush?
It is wasted time and effort. Might as well disband the entire constabulary and let every person and family to fend for themselves.
Each call that is made to a police station is greeted with: “No fuel”, or: “No transport”. Why man a police station at all? Close it down and send every police personnel home?
On Monday, five men who were alleged to have damaged a Kina Bank Automated Teller Machine (ATM) and stolen K435,000 during the Jan 10 civil unrest in Port Moresby were let off by the presiding magistrate for want of prosecution.
Committal Court magistrate Paul Puri Nii released the suspects from custody citing as his reason failure by police to progress the matter within reasonable time.
The suspects were arrested on Jan 10 and charged on Jan 30. The matter was listed to be heard on Feb 28, was postponed to March 28 on a no-show by police and again to Monday, April 8, but again the five failed to appear.
Preliminary evidence before the court suggests that a number of the suspects had confessed their involvement in the crime. Now, with the aid of an ineffective police prosecution process, they are free to enjoy the money if they indeed took the money and if they stashed some of it away.
Nii has further ordered the Director of Prosecutions Chief Insp Kuaip Pare and Officer-in-Charge of Prosecutions Boas Binuali to get their acts together and present prisoners in two weeks’ time or they would be summoned by the court to explain their reasons.
Nii practically told the police force that its in-house administrative issues must not be allowed to affect and interfere with the justice system.
‘Countries who don’t have brave prosecutors and fearless judges will instead have plenty of thieves, many killers and even stupid dictators!’ – Mehmet Murat ildan
Pare has told this newspaper that a letter has gone off to the Assistant Police Commissioner – Crimes. He is passing blame to the NCD/Central command, which seems to have carriage of the responsibility to transport the prisoners to and from the prison.
Police Commissioner David Manning said yesterday that the five men will be charged and said that the “unacceptable administrative shortcoming” was being resolved.
The problem is when a court releases prisoners, they are free.
It is also downright comical that the Prime Minister announced on the same day the suspects were set free (Monday, April 8) that ongoing police investigations into the Jan 10 unrest is nearing completion and those found culpable would face the full force of the law. What law? And what full force? There doesn’t seem to be any.
The police action in court and the Prime Minister’s words are diametrically opposed. Of what good is an assurance that an investigation is near at end when it is most likely those brought before the court might never be prosecuted and there is every chance they will walk free.
And all this while the business houses that suffered the full brunt of looting and arson are struggling to rebuild their businesses from ground zero up.
Police stood by and allowed the riots to reach its full fury on Black Wednesday. Now, it seems the force is allowing those who were involved in the crime to walk free. This cannot encourage businesses to rebuilt.
Such actions must tell the businesses houses there is no protection of their investment from criminal acts. This will most certainly dampen their desire and discourage them from rebuilding.
There are wider ramifications to this administrative matter and the faster the police command take serious action on this, the better.