Related
Translate
Advertisements *
Elsewhere
Get RNB via RSS
|
|
RNB's RSS feed What is this? |
Get RNB via Email
![]() |
![]() Subscribe by Email What is this? |
Follow: Twitter
Most Popular
This Week:
- Geert Wilders to test British free speech with anti-Muslim film screening
- Muslim Mob Storms Pakistan Church; 65 Injured
- More churches promote martial arts to reach young men
- Self-help guru James Arthur Ray arrested over sweat lodge deaths
- Hong Kong court awards Nina Wang fortune to family
- Prosecutors say alleged Elizabeth Smart kidnapper competent to stand trial
- Malta court orders cult leader’s extradition
- Scientologist makes court appearance in murder case
- Australian Senator challenges Scientology cult to agree to Senate inquiry
- Scientology: The Religion of the Stars, infiltrated
Death penalty for men who beheaded ‘witch’
Two men have been sentenced to death in Papua New Guinea after pleading guilty to wilfully murdering a woman accused of witchcraft by beheading her with a bushknife.
Sedoki Lota, 22, and Fred Abenko, 20, of Salakahadi village in Milne Bay Province have been ordered to be hanged by the neck until dead by Justice Mark Sevua in the National Court in Alotau.
The pair pleaded guilty to wilfully murdering Marcia Kedarossi on July 9, 2005, at Sigaroi village on Normanby Island, PNG’s Post-Courier newspaper reported today.
The court was told the pair entered Kedarossi’s house, blindfolded her and tied her hands before chopping her head off for allegedly practising sorcery and causing the deaths of their fathers.
A de facto moratorium on the death penalty is in place in PNG with former justice minister Bire Kimisopa saying last year that a proposal to abolish it was before cabinet.
Defence counsel for Lota and Abenko told the court the death sentence should not be imposed and the court should consider his clients’ guilty pleas and their belief in sorcery.
But Justice Sevua said aggravating factors in the case outweighed mitigating factors and a serious penalty was warranted.
He noted the two accused had been ordered to kill Kedarossi by village magistrate Martin Mega who had promised to pay them.
Sevua said that amounted to a contract killing and he used his discretion to impose the death penalty despite prosecutors not requesting it.
“It is my view that the degree of criminal culpability and cruelty exhibited by the prisoners is so enormous that imposing a determinate term is inadequate and will not fit the crime,” he said.
What You Can Do From Here
|
Read More Articles On These Topics
Share, Blog About, Bookmark, or Email This Article
Subscribe
Read Another Article
Find Related Information
Find Related Books
|
Share This Article
To share this page simply copy and paste one of these URL's:




