Three men were each sentenced to 26 years in prison on Thursday for taking part in a pack-rape incident on January 20, 2012 behind a house at Erima, in Port Moresby.
Lolo Bellamy (26) of Baidoka village, Bulubulu district in the Milne bay Province, Dobai Haro (29) and Douba Kapina (32), both from of Morea village, Ihu district in the Gulf Province were convicted on July 8, 2016 on four counts of aggravated rape.
Justice Panuel Mogish at the Waigani National Court sentenced the trio to 26 years in prison each for what he described as the worst ever rape incident where the men who were known to the victim acted in a breach of trust.
“If the offense was committed after 2013, you would be liable to penalty sentence of death and that’s how serious Parliament has imposed sentences of rape,” Justice Mogish told them.
The trio spent one year, three months and two weeks in remand therefore will spend a remaining 24 years, eight months and one week in prison.
The victim spoke to Bellamy around 10 o’clock that night of Jan 20,2012 at the tucker box after an outing with her friends at the Sports Inn Club did not eventuate as the fundraising dance was cancelled.
She and three of her friends ended up at a tucker shop to look for more beer. A fight took place and the victim got separated from her other friends. Bleeding from a head injury, Bellamy took advantage of her injury and took her to his house under the pretext of helping her.
Bellamy offered to take her home and wash her bleeding head because she was already feeling dizzy then.
While at his house, he brought Haro and Kapina who later tore her clothes off, dragged her to a banana patch behind the house and took turns repeatedly violating her.
The men were known to the victim having grown up in the same neighbourhood and despite her plea for them to stop, they continued raping her.
Haro even pushed his fist in her before he had his turn. “His actions in putting his fist into the victim’s vagina caused the most severe injuries. In any event, he played the main part in this further act of brutality,” Justice Mogish said.
She managed to push off Kapina and crawled under the fence into the neighbour’s yard where she managed to escape.
The extent of her injuries was so severe that she required suturing.