'Ileana Suliana Taulua was found not guilty on five counts of making a false declaration to obtain a Tongan passport at the Supreme Court on June 11.

She was charged on similar passport offences with Lord Tu'ivakano, who was convicted on three charges of making a false statement for the purpose of obtaining a passport and perjury, earlier in March.

Lord Chief Justice Whitten in his verdict was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt there was reasonable cause for the accused to believe that her affidavits deposing to and exhibiting the five photocopies of purported previous passport was false or misleading.

He acquitted her on each of the five counts. While, a sixth count of possession of an unlawfully issued passport was dismissed, when the Crown led no evidence.

Chinese applicants

The accused who lives in Ngele'ia is a retired police officer who was employed by the Tonga Police Force from 1972 to 2005.

She was in the Immigration Division of the Police and in 1996 was transferred to the ministerial wing at the Police Headquarters as second in charge of a Special Passport and Naturalization Unit, where she had access to the issue of Tongan National Passports and Tongan Protected Persons Passports.

In early October 2012, a woman named 'Isapela Satua Tu'akoi saw the accused at her home and asked her to complete an affidavit in support of a passport application for Shawei Hu.

The accused agreed and completed an affidavit and handed it to Tu'akoi in January 2013.

Tu'akoi again saw the accused and asked her to complete affidavits in support of two other passport applications for Singkei Lou and Shanoi Kam. Those affidavits were sworn on January 11, 2013 and given to Tu'akoi around April 2013.

This happened again but in relation to affidavits for two other Chinese Orlandoni Wong and Guang Chang Xiao.

The Court heard a search of the passport registers at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by date of issue and passport number on the copies of previous passport failed to identify any passport, issued to Shawei Hu, Singkei Lou, Shanoi Kam, Orlandoni Wong or Guang Chang Xiao.

The accused maintained that there are other registers besides the registers not in the possession of the Tonga Police.

The Chief Justice noted that was not the evidence given during the trial nor were any submissions made to that effect.

Meanwhile, the five passport applications attaching the affidavits sworn by the accused were lodged with the Immigration Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

All five applications were approved and these applicants were issued Tongan passports.

Expert evidence

The Court heard the passport applications and the supporting affidavits by the accused submitted to the Immigration Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the five applicants, were sent to New Zealand and examined by a handwriting expert.

This was Mr David Boot of New Zealand Police. He submitted a report dated in 2017. For reasons in his report, he opined that the five relevant alleged previous passports were fake.

The Chief Justice said as discussed with the Director of Public Prosecution, Semisi Lutui during closing submissions, the Crown's case is that each of the photocopies of previous passports had either been tampered with or reconstructed through the various means described by Mr Boot in his report to produce what appeared to be photocopies of pages for each passport.

Mr Boot's opinion evidence was not challenged nor was it contradicted by any opposite expert opinion evidence. I accept that in full, he said.

In cross-examination by defense counsel William Clive Edwards, Mr Boot agreed that a lay person, without any of his expertise or equipment or comparative specimens of handwriting, would not be expected to be able to identify that the photocopied passports were fake.

Defence

In the accused evidence, she explained how she had been approached by Tu'akoi from as early as 2010.

She was approached at a time and in circumstances where she said she had been given a letter by the then CEO for Foreign Affairs, the late Susana Faletau, requesting her, a long time retired serving officer of the police force and immigration division, to assist in confirming previous passports that had been issued during the time she was working in the division and which she had actually prepared.

The accused said that she was given a similar letter by Tu'akoi. She therefore considered she was being requested by Foreign Affairs to assist in this manner.

The assistance required her to provide affidavits, which were almost identical in form in respect of the five passports.

In her affidavits, the accused deposed at paragraph five that during the particular months of issue, the passports of each of the five Chinese applicants were renewed under a police command direction. The photocopy of the pages from the purported previous passports was annexed to her affidavits.

In each of the affidavits, the accused deposed to the effect that at the completion of the issue of each of the passports, they were submitted with their file to the Police Commander who checked the entitlement of the applicants for the Tongan passport.

After that, each passport was signed by the then Minister of Police.

The accused also confirmed that the handwriting of the details in each of the passports was her handwriting, and that each of the affidavits was prepared and completed by her and were taken to be sworn before a lawyer.

Affidavits

The Chief Justice said in each case, the completed affidavits were given to Tu'akoi.

Importantly, the accused said that each of the photocopies of previous passports was given to her by Tu'akoi.

"There was no evidence that the accused created any of those photocopies. There was no evidence that the accused ever tampered with any parts of genuine previous passports to concoct the fake photocopied passports."

More importantly, those allegations were never put to the accused in cross-examination, he said.

The Crown's case relied on an inference to be drawn from the physical state of the photocopies but without any opportunity for the accused to answer any of the allegations, which were only made in closing submissions.

He added, as is obvious Tu'akoi was not called, as she is currently the subject of charges awaiting trial.

“There is no evidence at all to rebut or even challenge the accused's evidence about the circumstances in which she was approached by Tu'akoi, given the photocopies of passports by Tu'akoi and asked to provide affidavits simply confirming what appeared to the accused as her handwriting on those passports which otherwise appeared to her to be genuine.

“When she was asked about whether she ever questioned the approaches by Tu'akoi, the accused answered, firstly, that she believed she had been requested by Foreign Affairs to assist in this way through the two letters to which she referred.

“Similarly, there was no challenge to the accused's evidence that she did not receive anything from Tu'akoi for her assistance with these affidavits whether by way of payment or any other reward. That itself begs an important question about any motive the accused might have had to act dishonestly,” said the Chief Justice.

"In my view, having regard to Mr Boot' s evidence conceding that a lay person, without expert knowledge or equipment, would be unable or unlikely to be able to identify those markings as indicia of forgery or fraudulently constructed documents, the accused's evidence was a perfectly reasonable explanation."

The Crown also pointed to the some 67 applications, in total, representing the number of occasions on which the accused agreed to provide affidavits in this way.

“However, from what I observed, particularly during the course Mr Boot' s evidence and the schedule to his report, they all appeared to be Chinese applicants. 

“That observation appears consistent with an era within this country starting from a Royal prerogative to grant passports to non Tongan nationals upon payment of considerable sums of money. That era unfolded into one in which renewals of those passports has caused significant concerns.

“This case, like that of Lord Tu'ivakano appears to be now being part of (and perhaps at the tail end) the investigations into those concerns,” said the Chef Justice.

“In light of Mr. Boot's evidence about the five reported previous passports here being fakes or forgeries, those concerns were well founded. However, the investigation into those who are considered responsible for any criminal or dishonest actions requires very clear and careful consideration. This case is an example,” he said.

Submissions

Edwards in his closing submissions essentially submitted there was no evidence that the accused had any reasonable cause to believe that the passports were fake or false or misleading.

The Prosecution, on the other hand provided a written outline of closing submission, which included a series of rhetorical questions, laced with incredulity about the accused' s evidence, aimed at persuading the Court to infer from the available physical evidence that the accused had reasonable cause to believe that the relevant passports were misleading. 


The Chief Justice said, first was whether the Court should believe that the accused was approached by Tu'akoi to provide at least 67 separate affidavits in support of passport applications, including the five relevant affidavits.

“My answer to that is that the accused not only said that she had assisted with those, but that other various 'agents' as she described them had approached her requesting similar assistance and that she assisted all of them in the same way.

“The important aspect of assessing her assisting in that way is the 'believability' of the photocopies of previous passports 
presented to her. So, in answer to the first proposition or question on behalf of the Crown, yes, the Court does accept that the accused was 
approached by Tu' akoi on all the occasions, including, for the five affidavits the subject to these charges,” he said.

“Secondly, the Crown asked whether the Court should believe that the accused knew that Tu'akoi was not working for Immigration.”

He said, that was the accused evidence.

"It was not challenged. I accept it."

Among other elements, the Chief Justice was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt there was reasonable cause for the accused to believe that her affidavits deposing to and exhibiting the five photocopies of purported previous passport was false or misleading.

“With that finding, the element of intent to deceive falls away,” he said.

The accused was then acquitted and discharged on all five counts.

Meanwhile, Tu'akoi's trial is up next at the Supreme Court.