A man from Kairuku, Central Province, has been found guilty of killing another man over a dead pig.
Allan Aiso was convicted by the Bomana National Court for the murder of George Evi on May 5, 2015 at Aipeana village, Kairuku district. He stabbed Evi on his left chest using a spear knife.
The court found that Aiso threw a spear knife at Evi (deceased) after he found him standing next to his dead pig in the garden.
All these took place in front of the deceased’s uncle, Paul Auki, whose statement was used as evidence by the state in prosecuting Aiso.
“I think that it was the spur of the moment reaction on the part of the accused. He found the deceased and Paul Auki standing next to his dead pig. He was armed at that time. He immediately hurled the spear at the deceased,” Justice Panuel Mogish said.
The deceased (Evi) and his uncle, Auki, walked over to a relative’s garden around 6am that day to investigate the noise of a pig in distress near their block.
They found the pig, which appeared to have been killed earlier. The accused, armed with a bush knife and spear knife, also arrived at the site with his son.
Upon his arrival, Aiso launched his spear at Evi without enquiring about the pig. The spear penetrated his left chest and he fell to the ground while his uncle, Auki, in fear of also being attacked, ran off to alert the others.
The deceased’s wife came to the garden and saw Aiso forcefully extracting his spear from Evi’s chest.
Medical evidence agreed with Auki’s statement, that the deceased was stabbed with a knife (spear knife) and later cut on his left arm with a knife.
“I find that the accused was, to some extent, provoked, and that caused him to stab the deceased,” Justice Mogish said when convicting Aiso.