Komo-Margarima MP, Francis Potape, is expected to file an application before the court for monies he repaid to the State, totaling K330,000, as restitution.
He paid the reimbursement after he was convicted by the National Court but before he was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison in early 2015.
A retrial was ordered by the Supreme Court on July 31 last year, quashing his conviction and sentence after a successful appeal. The retrial started on July 11 and went on for three days. On July 14, Potape’s lawyer asked the court to stop the trial and acquit his client of the misappropriation allegations. Potape was cleared on July 22.
Potape said he is in discussion with his lawyer and considering options to file a lawsuit against the State for damages the criminal case and trial has brought to his reputation.
“The amount of damages that this case has brought is tremendous. Now people call me prisoner of state and criminal. I want to say this to educated people on Facebook to look at the facts carefully before you brand leaders as criminal and all that,” he said after the court cleared him on the misappropriation charges.
The case was dismissed last Friday after the State failed to bring sufficient evidence to neither justify the payments of K330, 000 DSIP funds nor show that he received monies from the resolution passed.
(Picture: Potape last Friday outside court.)