Lord Lasike, the Speaker of the Tonga Legislative Assembly awaits judgement on one charge of possession of ammunitions without a licence that will be delivered on Monday, July 9 at the Supreme Court in Nuku'alofa.

Chief Justice Hon Michael Dishington Scott set his judgement date after a day and a half of trial, after legal submissions from the Crown and the defence were completed this morning, July 6.

Lasike, who pleaded not guilty in January, was charged with one count of possession of ammunitions, related to two .22 rifle bullets found by police on June 28, 2010, during a search warrant conducted at the Sandy Boyz Motel, Room 10, said to have been occupied by him. 

Submissions

Defence counsel William Edwards Jr in his submission said the prosecution had failed to prove that the accused was in fact in possession of the two bullets.

He said Lasike in his evidence had denied knowing anything about the contents in the box which collaborated with Sandra's evidence that the box was hers, and the items inside were hers, except from the two bullets which she said, " she had no idea where it came from."

The defence counsel said Lasike had also denied that Room 10 was his room.

In addition there was inconsistencies in regards to the police officers' evidence, two said they searched one room while two said they searched two rooms. All of this had established that significant doubt should be afforded to the accused under these circumstances, he said.

Crown

The Crown Prosecutor Sione Sisifa argued that evidence provided by the Crown had proven beyond reasonable doubt that Lord Lasike was indeed in possession of the two bullets.

He said the sole issue to determine was whether the accused was in possession of the two bullets and circumstantial evidence had proven that.

He said the inconsistencies in the police officers' evidence in regards the number of rooms searched was not significant to adverse the credibility of their evidence.

The Crown called four witnesses which were the police officers who did the search, while the defence had two,  Lasike and his wife Sandra, during the trial before judge alone.