Two charged with stealing from pastor

A 23-YEAR-OLD man was jailed three months on Monday for stealing K300 from a pastor at an automatic teller machine (ATM) on Aug 4.
Mt Hagen magistrate Lydia Karre found Gilsen Alfi, from Nipa in the Southern Highlands, guilty of doing illegal transactions using the pastor’s bank card.
Alfi’s accomplice, Jason Peter, also from Nipa, was jailed for three months when he pleaded guilty when the case was mentioned on Aug 27.
The court heard that Alfi and Peter offered to help the pastor, from Erave, Southern Highlands, to withdraw money from an ATM in the National Broadcasting Corporation’s lobby next to a police station.
They stood on both sides of the pastor and then used the bank card to make three cell phone top ups totalling K300.
Prosecution witness, Richard Pep, said he was standing in the queue when he saw what was happening.
He then raised an alarm and several people helped to detain the duo and took them to the police station.
Police searched Alfi and found two cards, a Bank of South Pacific sumatin card and another invalid card in his pocket.
Alfi told the court that his brother gave him his bank card to withdraw some money.
“I inserted the card into the machine but I did not know the pin number,” he said, blaming Peter for stealing from pastor. Karre found Alfi lying and delivered the sentence.