Criminal Track Judge Justice Teresa Berrigan has disqualified herself from sitting in the Pre-trial hearing of Paul Paraka’s co-accused Jacob Yafai and referred the matter to the registry to allocate another judge.
When the court came into session for the pre-trial review this morning, lawyer representing Yafai, Martin Kombri filed a motion asking Justice Berrigan to disqualify herself, citing her involvement in dealing with some evidence in Paraka’s trial which will also be used in Yafai’s trial.
“We asked for a disqualification because she dealt with some evidence in Paraka’s trial which will also be used in Yafai’s trial.
“So we file a motion asking her to disqualify herself and refer the matter to the registry for the registry to allocate the matter to another judge,” he said.
Kombri said they also asked the court to issue summons to Peter O’Neill, Don Polye, and two others who are not on the state witness list to appear for the pre-trial for evidence purposes.
“We are summoning them to confirm some documents that will be used in the Court as evidence because the state did not list them as state witnesses,” he said.
The pre-trial conference has been tentatively set for September 2nd, 2024 and will run for two weeks. These dates will be confirmed by July 22nd, 2024.
Yafai is before the court for acting improperly while he was the then Deputy Secretary of Operations of the Department of Finance and at some stage, Acting Secretary of Finance. He is alleged to have paid legal bills to Paul Paraka Lawyers totaling Millions of Kina.
Yafai was arrested and charged on 18th September 2013 based on these allegations and was committed to stand trial for one count of Official Corruption, one count of Abuse of Office, one count of Conspiracy to Defraud, and one count of Misappropriation.
Yafai is alleged to have committed these offenses between 2012 to 2013. Meantime, Paraka was found guilty of five counts of misappropriation and sentenced to 20 years in Prison. He is serving time in Bomana.