Witness: I helped Kapris

THE prosecution’s first witness in the William Nanua Kapris trial in Madang yesterday took the stand and identified the accused as the person he helped obtained fuel for to get out of Lae after the alleged Madang BSP branch robbery in 2008.
Timon Taka, in his early 50s, from Lingala village in Finschhafen, Morobe, took the witness box and identified Kapris as the man who arrived in his village looking for fuel, distributed bullets and firearms and the man who “showed me friends who housed me and the other co-accused at various locations in Lae”. Taka identified Elvis Aka as the skipper of the 23ft 40 horse-powered banana boat.
He also identified Colin Masilo as the man he saw at a Bobby Selan’s house at Second Street in Lae and Peter Allan Popo as the man in a brown Mazda double cab Hilux used during their stay.
He described Elizabeth Kivare and her child as the “Kerema woman” who accommodated them at 2-Mile outside Lae.
Taka wrongly pointed out another accused as Elvis, hesitated and was thrown into a 10-minute indecisiveness when trying to identify Selan for the second time, as Selan had lost a considerable amount of weight.
It was only after returning from an adjournment that Taka said: “Nau mi tingim Selan. Pastaim em bendaun na hat long lukim em gut.”(I can now pick out Selan. Earlier it was hard because he had his head down).
This comment brought laughter from the packed courtroom.
Taka, in his evidence, said he was tending his coconut plantation when Kapris and his group fronted up at his home in Finschhafen on June 23, 2008.
“They were short on fuel and needed assistance, so I helped,” he recalled.
From there, they took a dinghy ride into Lae and, when Taka later returned to Finchhafen, he was arrested by police.
Taka told the court that he was paid K6,000 which police confiscated along with 10 rolls of marijuana that were in his possession. The marijuana had landed him three months at the Buimo prison.
Taka’s had slipped a number of times during cross examination. At one stage, he told the court that Kapris had given him the money but, on a signed police affidavit, he had named Paul Kapis (a relative of Kapris) as that person.
Another statement indicated a figure of K20,000, and not K6,000 as he had told the court.
The defence team would test the credibility of this evidence on Monday.
Evidence tendered included photographs of the vehicle allegedly used and an aerial view of the Gets Compound tributary where the hub of the alleged crime took place.