11 found guilty of conspiracy

VANUATU – Eleven jailed members of the Vanuatu Parliament and a lawyer have been found guilty on a charge of conspiring to defeat the course of justice.

Fourteen MPs are currently serving jail terms after being found guilty of receiving money to cross the floor of parliament and change the government last year.

After the guilty conviction on bribery was handed down in October, the then speaker of parliament, Marcellino Pipite, in his role as acting president, pardoned himself and his colleagues.

The president, Baldwin Lonsdale, promptly overturned the pardons on his return to the country, and the Supreme Court later threw out the MPs’ bid to have that decision dismissed.

Pipite is one of the 14 MPs jailed, most of them for three years, although Moana Carcasses, the former prime minister who paid the bribes, is serving four years.

The Vanuatu Daily Post reports that the presiding Supreme Court Judge, Richard Chetwynd found the eleven MPs, as well as lawyer Wilson Aumai, guilty of conspiring to defeat the course of justice.

The maximum sentence for that crime is seven years’ imprisonment.

Three of the jailed MPs not charged with conspiracy are Carcasses, Steven Kalsakau and another former prime minister Serge Vohor.

The politicians have served 10 months of their sentence.

- RNZI/PNC