Crime In Samoa
p. 73 · Read in the full issue
Prom Our Own Correspondent APIA, June 28.
UNUSUAL charges of murder and at tempted murder were before the High Court (Chief Judge Marsack, and juries of three Europeans and one Samoan) in Apia in June.
Seko To’oala, of Lu’ua, Faga, Savaii, got ten years’ gaol, for manslaughter. He had used a cane knife to chop off the head of Lokenl, of Fusi. Lokeni had lived with Seko’s sister, who by him had had four childern. Then Lokeni neglected the woman, and he resented the reproaches of Seko; so Seko killed him. Mitigating circumstances caused the charge to be reduced from murder to manslaughter.
Ama Saunoagamaali’i was sentenced to death for murder. One evening, in Beach Road, Matefele, Apia, in front of the Methodist Church, Ama had an argument with another Samoan, and suddenly drew a knife and stabbed him fatally in the abdomen, and then ran away. The police chased and caught him. He begged the Court not to send him to gaol, but to hang him. The Court complied with his wishes.
A Samoan woman, Lotu, was found not guilty of attempting to murder her un named child by burying it in the sand at the sea shore. Another woman, Faapusa Faumuina, was sent to gaol for four years for murdering her newly-born child.
Lucia Roberts was fined £5O, and Joe Steffany £lOO, for having bought bags of cocoa-beans, the property of the NZ Re- Sarations Estates, knowing them to have een stolen.
Mr. John Stitt, of Sohano, New Guinea, was flown to Rabaul and admitted to hospital on July 5. Old fuses, which he was handling, exploded and blew off some of his fingers.