Tribunal adjourned, time given to deal with administrative issues

THE leadership tribunal against Aitape-Lumi MP Patrick Pruaitch will return tomorrow at 10am to the Bomana National Court after it was adjourned yesterday to deal with administrative issues relating to documents tendered in court.
Chairman of the tribunal Justice Panuel Mogish adjourned it after Pruaitch’s lawyer Greg Sheppard raised issue on the arrangement of the documents in the pre-trial statements.
“The problem with the way the pre-trial documents are done is that it doesn’t relate to any of the documents sought to be tendered to any of the charges,” Sheppard said.
Justice Mogish told Sheppard: “The clarity is that it’s (documents) not organised in a manner which relates to the charge.
“That means that we have to go through the whole process unless it can be further categorised.
“For instance, for allegation number one, these are the documents, for allegations two, these are the documents. “That makes it much easier,” Justice Mogish said.
He said that would help the tribunal to sift through the materials faster.
“We will have to go back and re-write, extracting what to have and place it against the category.
“The resolution now is that the public prosecutor will re-arrange the documents so that it’s consistent with the allegations,” he said.
Public Prosecutor Pondros Kaluwin had earlier told the tribunal that they had already filed pre-trial statements. He said that he had consulted with Sheppard on the documents that would be contested in court by the latter.
“I have spoken to my friend on the documents that might be contested and those that might not be contested,” Kaluwin said.
Sheppard told the tribunal that they had no objections on documents relating to category four of the allegations.
“The tribunal refers to the reference by the public prosecutor and in particular category 4 of the allegations, allegations 6,7, and 8.
“They are allegations which will not be contested by the leader,” Sheppard said.
Kaluwin then presented an explanatory memorandum regarding what the reference was about and the allegations against the MP.
The other two tribunal members are senior magistrates Michael Apie’e and Nancy Lipai.