Sokomanu sent to jail in mutiny trial

Press, 8 March 1989, Page 8

Sokomanu sent to jail in mutiny trial

NZPA-AAP Port Vila The Vanuatu Supreme Court yesterday sentenced the sacked Head of State, Ati George Sokomanu, aged 52, to six years jail after convicting him of attempting to oust the Government of the Prime Minister, Walter Lini, and inciting mutiny within the country’s security forces last year.

His nephew — and Father Lini’s arch political rival — Barak Sope, aged 37, who had been named as interim Prime Minister in the illegal regime, was jailed for five years. The former opposition leader, Maxime Carlot, aged 47, who had been appointed Sope’s deputy, was also sentenced to five years. A former member of Parliament, Willie Jimmy, aged 37, received two years in prison for also taking part in the interim Government which was set up on December 18, two days after Sokomanu tried to dissolve Parliament in a bid to end a

long-running power struggle between the former comrades Sope and Father Lini. Two defendants, Dr Frank Spooner and a businessman and former Member of Parliament, John Naupa, who were also appointed interim Ministers, were acquitted along with a former presidential private secretary, John Kalotiti. The seven had pleaded not guilty to incitement to mutiny plus a range of lesser charges including seditious conspiracy, making seditious statements and taking unlawful oaths. The conviction of Sokomanu, Sope and Carlot on the main mutiny count

came after the judge, Chief Justice Gordon Ward, over-ruled the findings of two lay assessors who had been appointed to help him reach a verdict. The assessors, who acted as an advisory twoman jury, had found all seven not guilty of the mutiny count. This charge had been based on a circular written by Sokomanu threatening the security forces with foreign military intervention if they did not drop their allegiance to Father Lini. His Honour ruled that Sokomanu knew that the Lini Government was still holding on to power when

he wrote the letter and of the possible violent consequences of a split in the security forces, in spite of testimony by the former President that he would be “the last man to see blood in the streets of Vila”. Sope and Carlot also realised that such action to sway the police and paramilitary was needed before they set up the interim Government. Earlier, his Honour ruled against a defence contention that Sokomanu had the power' under the constitution to dissolve Parliament and appoint Ministers without the consent of the elected Government.