BY ROMINAH FAKA
Magistrate court has summoned the defence lawyer who represents accused Samuel Ariki to write to the court and explain his reason for not providing proper instructions to the PSO counsel who appeared in court yesterday, and for not complying to court directions on the last occasion to obtain instructions from his client to prepare him for plea yesterday.
Ariki is charged for five counts of sexual intercourse with child under age of 15 namely 11 years old.
Yesterday court session prosecution updates the court, the investigation already completed however, only one outstanding document is yet to be collect from the victim which is the birth certificate.
Therefore, crown sought a seven days’ adjournment for prosecution to obtain the outstanding document which is the birth certificate of the victim and to serve it to the defence counsel.
Court adjourns to March 8 and instructed the prosecution to complete the memo before the next mention date and defence counsel to get instruction from his client and prepared him for plea on the next mention date.
Prosecution alleged Samuel Ariki inside his kitchen at Haleta village, Big Ngella, Central Province on an unknown date between 1st of January 2022 and 31st of December 2022, he did have sexual intercourse with the victim (Juvenile) age of 11 years old of the time of incident.
Again, on the 28th of October 2023 accuse Ariki did have sexual intercourse with the same juvenile victim at the same location Haleta village, Ngella.
The matter was reported to the police on the 23rd of January 2024 and accused was arrested and remanded in Rove.
Office of Public Prosecution appears for the State and Office of Public Solicitor office appears for the defence.
