Witnesses want case against miner to proceed in court
By EDDIE OSIFELO
THREE police witnesses in the case against Win Win mining company general manager, Dan Shi have changed their minds to revoke the first signed letter on 30th November 2022, to settle the matter out of court.
In the first letter sent to National Criminal Investigation Department (NCID), the complainants Stanley Kaoni, Patson Tara and Willie have agreed to withdraw their complaints against accused Shi because he is a “genuine investor”.
And also, they can be able to benefit from the mining operation.
However, in a second letter submitted to Director of Public Prosecution last Friday, they disagreed with their signed previous letter to settle the matter outside of court and urges the company to compensate them.
“Since the Win Win manager fails to uphold his promise then, we wish to revoke the signed letter before the court,” they said in their latest letter.
“And we want the court to take its course,” they added.
Furthermore, the letter says, “we were very surprised to see some prominent leaders, politicians and lawyer in the Guadalcanal Province are luring us to withdraw the existing court case and it wonders us a lot, that what is going on here?
“We ask ourselves: why these people are trying to help this foreigner and investor?”
Police have charged Shi with two counts of intimidation, a statement from the RSIPF Media said earlier.
The charges were laid after a search warrant was conducted for a replica firearm at the Win Win area at Alligator Creek and Turarana where the company operates the alluvial mining.
Initial police reports revealed that on 1 April 2022, some landowners called in at Win Win Company to seek advance payment for the purpose of purchasing goods for the mourning ceremony for one of their relatives.
All of a sudden, the General Manager appeared with a replica gun and intimidated the landowners as he was not happy with one of the landowners.
The General Manager was released on bail condition and had appeared before the Honiara Central Magistrates’ Court on 31 October 2022.
The replica gun is now with police and is subject to investigation as to how it entered the country as it is not one of those replica guns that came into the country for police training, the RSIPF Media statement said.
