Results for From the Courts

A final warning rang out in Tonga’s Supreme Court as a repeat offender narrowly avoided jail — spared only by a glowing letter from his employer.

A 51-year-old woman suffered a fractured skull and permanent damage to her arm, while her daughter’s nursing studies were disrupted, after a violent machete attack that the Lord Chief Justice described as intolerable domestic brutality.

Pita Lolohea is serving 18 months in prison for counts that included the theft of electronics valued at around  $14,756 pa'anga and serious wilful damage when he broke into the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in March last year.

A Nuku'alofa businessman Tohitongi Fetu’u is serving life imprisonment for importing over 3.5 kg of methamphetamine, along with co-accused 'Eneasi Taumoefolau, one of the main financiers, who imported over 2.2 kg of methamphetamine. Four others received lengthy jail sentences for related drug offences. The judge named the alleged US supplier and urged Tongan authorities to liaise with the FBI to bring him to justice.

Penisimani Fisi’ihoi (43) is serving one year and six months imprisonment for obtaining $20,000 from a complainant, who was made to believe that he was surrendering over his town allotment in Kolomotu’a by falsifying a letter and stamp of the Ministry of Lands.

Christopher Tupe (20) is serving one year and four months in prison for causing grievous bodily harm, when he attacked a 25-year-old complainant with a machete, after a fist fight at a bar in ‘Eua earlier this year.

A former senior customs officer, Mosese Katoa (58), is serving two years in prison on charges that included the importation of  prohibited goods. When firearms concealed in a crate arrived in Tonga in 2023 he also attempted to bribe another Customs Officer to avoid the scanner.

An appeal by the Minister of Lands against a Land Court’s ruling that he made a mistake when issuing a deed of grant to a tiny piece of land in 'Utungake, Vava'u to a leaseholder, instead of the adjoining owner, was rejected by the Appeal Court recently.

A former Prime Minister, Feleti Sevele, (Lord Sevele) won his appeal against the dismissal of his defamation case against three respondents in a radio program back in 2022. The Appeal Court has ordered a retrial.