Why make arrest when there’s no evidence: Court

The National National

By VANESSA NIKEN
A MAGISTRATE has questioned police why they arrest people when there is no evidence.
Waigani committal court Magistrate Paul Puri Nii raised the issue yesterday when striking out the armed robbery case of Joshua Robert, 40, from Kasuru village in Okapa, Eastern Highlands, for want of police evidence.
He said it was not the court that struck out the case, but police who had failed to give evidence.
“Why have people arrested when you have no evidence,” he told the police.
“You must arrest people based on evidence.
“Those remanded in custody go through hardships only to find out that police have no evidence.”
On Dec 5, at 11.21am, Robert was allegedly in the company of five others and drove in a white Toyota Rush to Way Back Supermarket at Hagara, Hanuabada, Port Moresby, and held up two security vehicles escorting cash from shops around the city.
Robert, with his accomplices were allegedly armed with two factory-made rifles and three factory-made pistols and drove to the Way Back Supermarket.
The suspects flung open the door of the vehicle, came out in a rushed action while two other suspects in possession of rifles shot at a white Nissan Patrol vehicle belonging to Alpha Response Security that was on duty escorting Eliseo Ltd cash.
The security vehicles stopped over at the supermarket front awaiting pick-up of cash from the shop.
Their gun – Mossberg shotgun pump action – was stolen and later recovered by police.
Police alleged that three of the suspects armed with pistols approached Eliseo security staff Kenneth Kuri in a vehicle.
The suspects forced opened its locked door from the crew side and robbed K90,500 – placed in two cartons.
Police alleged that before the occurrence, security manager Jimmy Ledda left to go to the supermarket to pick up cash when the three suspects approached the vehicle, used an object and smashed the front windscreen and crew door screen of the vehicle and then forced the crew to the ground.
The suspects then disappeared with the cash.