CRIME IN SAMOA

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 32, 8 February 1943, Page 4

CRIME IN SAMOA

UNPRECEDENTED INCREASE ONE DEATH SENTENCE (0.C.) APIA, January 20. The unprecedented increase in major criminal offences continues unabated. The trial of the Samoan, Ete, for the shockingly brutal and premeditated murder of the Chinese foreman of Lafi Plantation, Yu Hoi, ended in the accused being sentenced to death. In another case tried before Chief Judge Herd and assessors in January, a Samoan male, Eteuati, of Salimu, Fagaloa, was found guilty of manslaughter following the death of a fellow villager and relation, Kolose, who was struck by a stone during a family squabble. The accused was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment with hard labour. In a third case a Samoan, Tapusoa Ese, of Safutu, Savaii, killed a fellow villager, Saua, with a bush knife after some family trouble. In a case reported from the South Coast of Upolu, at Palealili, a young Samoan woman killed her newlyborn twin babies and buried them on the beach near the residence of her family. Child murder was practically unheard of in former times amongst Samoans. Offences against liquor and curfew regulations are also frequent at the present time. A local born German, Hans Walter, was convicted in the Apia High Court on a charge of being in possession of distilling apparatus under the Distillation Act, and was sentenced to six months' imprisonment. Two other local-born men, Alfred Williams and Arthur Hannemann, with two Samoans were convicted of the theft of a drum of gasoline and were sentenced to six and four months' and two months' imprisonment respectively.