State v Doledole [1997] PGNC 15; N1513 (20 February 1997)

Unreported National Court Decisions

N1513

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

[NATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE]

CR NO 459 OF 1996
THE STATE
v
KINGSLEY DOLEDOLE

Waigani

Batari AJ
20 February 1997

JUDGMENT ON SENTENCE

The accused has been convicted upon his plea of guilty to one count of murder. He was a policeman and the deceased was a person detained on a suspicion of having stolen a police AR15 firearm issued to the accused. The following judgment was delivered on sentence.

Counsel:

L Maru for the State

M Apie’e for the Accused

20 February 1997

BATARI AJ: Kingsley DoleDole, having been presented for trial for the wilful murder of one Isaac Koke Lapa at Koban Coffee Plantation in the Western Highlands Province, you sought leave during the course of trial to plead to the alternate verdict of murder. In a separate ruling, I held your change of plea to be procedurally permissible. Consistent with the plea that you entered upon re-arraignment, I have found you guilty of murder and have convicted you accordingly.

It is now my responsibility to impose sentence upon you.

You have conceded a prior conviction for assault in which you were fined K250.00. Your lawyer has informed me that you and four other policemen assaulted a drunken person causing him injuries as a result. That prior conviction appeared to involve a serious assault to warrant a substantial fine.

The circumstances surrounding the commission of your offence are found in the evidence of witnesses given against you on the trial of wilful murder. Both you and your lawyer agreed those facts formed the basis for your change of plea to the lesser offence of murder. I will refer only fairly briefly to what I consider to be the general facts from the evidence.

During the period of July to August, 1995 you were based at Koban Plantation with five other policemen following arrangement for police presence at the Plantation during the Coffee Season. You were in charge of the group and were issued an AR15 rifle. This firearm went missing during the period in question. On the evening of 28 August, 1995 Issac Koke Lapa was detained upon suspicion that he had taken it. He was initially questioned with his hands tied to his back by two of your members. Later that same evening, you brought a second suspect for interrogation. The two suspects were also assaulted when they denied knowledge of the missing firearm. You took over the interrogation and removed the suspects to the open back of a police vehicle. You drove them to various locations that night, stopping ocassionally in attempts to obtain their admissions at gunpoint. Their hands were tied to their back and onto the vehicle frame with a rope for most part of the ride until the deceased said something about the missing gun. You returned the suspects to the plantation in the early hours of the next day where the second suspect was released. Your two constables again joined you in further interrogation of the deceased that morning. He was kicked and hit on the head with a hammer at the office. He was again put in the vehicle and driven to Kirmil Market by the three of you.

His hands were tied behind his back and onto the vehicle, to ensure, it would seem, he did not escape or fall off from the moving vehicle. In that state, you beat him on various parts of his body with a motor-bike helmet. You also attacked him with a rubber hose, described as black and big with a diameter of about 3cm. He was described as very weak and appeared he would die from those beatings. The deceased was taken to Kimil Health Centre and later to Kunjib Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The Medical Report showed the deceased died from severe head injury which appeared consistent with the history of being beaten with a blunt object. External examination revealed multiple blunt stick marks all over the chest, back of chest and back of scalp with blood soaked hair. Bruises were also seen on the inner aspect of the left leg.

I accept that the deceased was assaulted in the manner described by the eye-witnesses. I need not iterate in detail, the manner in which you mistreated the deceased. There is nothing remarkable about them. It is sufficient to say that over 12 hours, you detained the deceased without a charge, and subjected him to atrocious treatment. Besides physical injuries and pains, I have no doubt he also suffered from the cold temperatures of the highlands mountains that you exposed him to that night. You assaulted him in full view of the public at Koban Plantation. At Kimil Market, you had him publicly displayed and flogged until he could barely sit up. At all times, you had his hands tied behind his back and denied him rest and sleep. I am satisfied that you were responsible personally and with the complicity of Senior Constable Apo and Constable Kaia for the beatings and other forms of mistreatment which accentuated in Isaac Koke Lapa’s death.

On any view of the episode, you unlawfully detained the deceased and literally tortured him to death. The disturbing fact about this case is that you were a policemen, a law enforcement agent purportedly carrying out your duties. It would appear to me that the deceased who was under the Constitution, innocent until proven guilty by a court of law was a man detained, tried and executed by his captors. What happened to him at the hands of the prisoner and the two constables where he was subjected to savage cruelty and treated as something less than human, was a flagrant violation of the National Constitution. As a policeman, you were entrusted with the fair treatment of a suspect under s. 42 of the Constitution. You breached that trust.

I think it was an insult for you to speak highly of Issac Koke Lapa as a good police informant after what you did to him. That view of him was incompatible to your reckless behaviour which led to his death. You showed him no mercy. You seemed quite indignant for the pain and suffering being inflicted on him. In the upshot, you showed completed disregard for law and order and total disrespect to established institutions charged with the responsibility of administering justice in an orderly society.

I understand police work and in particular, investigations are often difficult, frustrating and causes members much stress. This however does not empower members of a disciplined force to be laws unto themselves or take the law into their own hands. Violations of basic rights of the individual by such conduct as the prisoner’s only tarnish the good name of the Police Force and undermine the efforts of those policemen and policewomen who work hard to maintain the highest regard, respect and publicly support in police work.

You have asked a number of factors to be taken into account in your allocutus. I have considered those in addition to what your lawyer had submitted in mitigation.

You are aged 38 years old and had served in the Police Force for 16 years. One could say that bespeaks of good character. Your prior conviction however showed that you have an inclination towards violence. This is supported by the evidence that you and your police members had during the period in question detained a number of robbery suspects and subjected them to beatings before releasing them without charges. Your family will suffer as a result of your conviction. Your future employment in the Force and your financial commitments will also be affected. Those unfortunately are the sad consequences of your actions which you should have considered when you set out on the path of constitutional violations of the deceased’s basic rights.

Your intentions to retrieve a State property may have been honourable. However, I am satisfied that your deliberate and unlawful interrogations and assaults resulted in a crime, the seriousness of which is reflected in the penal servitude of life imprisonment under the Criminal Code.

As I have earlier stated you seemed to have little respect for the law or any sense of the value of human life. You must understand that the society which this court represents does not tolerate police atrocities and other forms of brutality which undermine the process of justice that are crucial to its survival and to the safety of law abiding members of the public.

I have had regard also to your plea of guilty. But it was apparent your change of plea was made only after the evidence of the beatings and injuries sustained became overwhelming on the trial of wilful murder. There is no basis to say that time and expenses were not lost to the State.

Your case has caused me some difficulty when I consider sentence. There are substantial considerations for and against the imposition of a substantial sentence. However, after taking into account all of the matters some of which I have adverted in an attempt to achieve a proper synthesis, I concluded that a substantial sentence must be imposed on you.

You are sentenced to serve a term of imprisonment for eight (8) years in hard labour.

I recommend that ex-gratia payment be made by the State for the wrongful death of the deceased Isaac Koke Lapa.

I recommend also that any policemen implicated in this case be dealt with in accordance with due process of law.

Bail of K400.00 be refunded.

Lawyer for the State: Public Prosecutor

Lawyer for the Accused: A Public Solicitor