Results for From the Courts

Four Tongan nationals, including two former civil servants, will be sentenced on 11 November after changing their plea to guilty to charges in a Tongan passport forgery trial that began at the Nuku'alofa Supreme Court on 13 September. The case involves a passport application using a forged Tongan birth certificate of a person who does not exist.

Chief Justice O. G. Paulsen has reserved his ruling on an application for an Injunction and a Judicial Review of a decision by the Minister for Infrastructure and Tourism, Hon Semisi Sika in June 2016, to remove the Chairman and a Director of the Tonga Tourism Authority Board.

Hemaloto Makafilia (23) and Sailosi Lau’i (21) who were arrested and charged for the brutal attack of a 56-year-old American woman, the United States Peace Corps Director in Nuku’alofa in July, were denied bail by the Nuku'alofa Magistrate's Court on Monday, 5 September.

Lord Chief Justice O. G. Paulsen on 25 August at the Nuku’alofa Supreme Court ordered the Prime Minister, Hon. ‘Akilisi Pohiva and the Audit and Governance Authority of the 2019 Pacific Games to refrain from removing Lord Sevele-‘o-Vailahi from his position as the Chief Executive Officer of the Tonga Pacific Games Organizing Committee, and to pay all remuneration and other benefits due to him that has been withheld since 1 July 2016.

Siokivaha Timani was sentenced to four-years and nine-months imprisonment for causing grievous bodily harm when he stabbed Tesimoni Funaki with a knife, causing injuries to his back and right lung in February last year, at Navutoka.

Lord Tu'iha'ateiho is expected to appear at the Nuku'alofa Magistrate’s Court on Monday, 15 August on numerous charges including common assault, unlawful imprisonment and possession of unlicensed ammunition in relation to a public disturbance earlier this year.

A woman is entitled to feel safe in her own home. Home invasion accompanied by sexual offending is not uncommon in Tonga possibly as a consequence of the limited security many homes have, a Supreme Court judge said when sentencing Paneti Sa (18) to five-years imprisonment for the predatory and callous crime when he raped a 27-year-old pregnant woman in her own home in Tongatapu, last year.

Two men of Chinese origin who hid tobacco in tea bags were found guilty of smuggling and failing to declare to Tonga Customs tobacco in excess of the legal limit when the men arrived at Fua’amotu International Airport, in April last year.

Women need to be protected from predatory behaviour in their own homes, said a judge in sentencing Lopeti Talafekau Soafa (18) to four-years imprisonment for the attempted rape of a 23-year-old volunteer from Japan in October last year, at Tofoa.