Widow extradited for

Trial

Widow extradited for trial in Vanuatu

The trial of Luciana Picchi, charged with the murder of her husband Franco Picchi last year, will generate a lot of interest in Vanuatu because the country had never before witnessed such a violent crime. The verdict will be keenly waited.

By Patrick Decloitre

Singapore-extradited Italian widow Luciana Picchi appeared briefly for the first time on July 7 before a Vanuatu court where she was remanded in custody for 14 days after being charged for the premeditated intentional homicide of her husband last year. This month should see the real trial begin with hear ings in Supreme Court in this unprece dented criminal case which caused enor mous shock and has already prompted much passion in the island state’s capital

community.

Since last April Vanuatu authorises were seeking extradition from Singapore for an Italian woman arrested there while charged here of her husband’s intentional homicide. The case relates to the murder last November 29 of Italian builder Franco Picchi who was found dead at the bottom of a slope at the back of his pick-up truck.

The body of Franco Picchi, 51, was taken to the Vila Central Hospital morgue, where a post-mortem revealed heavy skull damage, broken neck, and ribs and wounds on the back.

Picchi’s neck had traces of strangula tion and the chest was also badly dam

aged.

Public Prosecutor John Baxter Wright who immediately went on the scene with police inspectors said there has been other cases of expatriates dying in Vanuatu in dubious circumstances but nothing as vio lence-related as this case since the island

state’s independence.

“Ni-Vanuatu usually kill with bush knives, hands and feet,” Baxter-Wright said, describing the incident as the most violent death of a foreigner in Vanuatu since independence 1980.

Since then, despite the help of Australian Federal Police detectives sent to help, the Vanuatu Police had not been able to solve the case.

However, Police confirmed last April 21 a breakthrough in the investigation when they arrested two ni-Vanuatu men

last week who confessed they had com mitted the crime in exchange of substantial amounts of money. The same week, they were charged with premeditated intention al homicide in Vanuatu Supreme Court.

The Court also issued a warrant for the arrest of the victim’s widow, Luciana Picchi, who has also been charged with the premeditated intentional homicide of her husband, but by then she had left the coun try.

Vanuatu’s attorney-general, Patrick Ellum, said at the time Luciana Picchi had been arrested on April 19 in Singapore with the help of Interpol’s international network and Australian Federal Police.

She was remanded in custody in Changi Prison.

Following Vanuatu’s request for extra dition a Court in Singapore then had to decide whether they would return Picchi.

“I think they have reasons for doing so but if Mrs Picchi wishes to fight the extra dition this will take a few more weeks,”

Ellum said.

Legal action was taken by the accused widow who has first decided to fight the extradition bid by Vanuatu authorities.

However, in a move that still leaves the Vanuatu prosecution baffled, on June 15 the Singapore court ordered Mrs Picchi’s extradition to Vanuatu to face trial for the alleged murder of her husband Franco Picchi.

“The final hearing was brought forward from July 5 after the accused’s lawyers in Singapore indicated they would no longer be opposing extradition. But Singapore regulation required two weeks before she could be escorted back to Vanuatu by police,” Ellum stated last June.

On July 6, Luciana Mari Picchi was back in Port Vila where she was first detained in the police headquarters cells.

She was also immediately interviewed by police here. Public Prosecutor John

Baxter-Wright said.

She was however allowed to see the Italian Honorary Consul in Port Vila and her lawyer, John Malcolm.

Earlier the same week, two local sus

pects in the same murder case,. George Tui and Perry Jimmy pleaded guilty to the charges of premeditated intentional homi cide before Port Vila’s magistrate’s court, which then referred the case to Supreme Court here to deliver its sentence.

However, Baxter-Wright said, state ments or affidavits will have to be obtained from the doctor who carried out the post-mortem on the corpse last November, Australian Ron Peach and Australian Federal Police investigators who were flown in to help with the case because people are no longer in Vanuatu.

Meanwhile, the case should have been referred to Supreme Court here, he added.

“I believe it will take about four weeks before prosecution can start,” he told the Court.

On the first appearance of Mrs Picchi before a Vanuatu court last July 7, Magistrate Bruce Kalotiti, who adjourned the 15-minute hearing until Friday July 21, denied release on bail for Mrs Picchi as he said the magistrate’s court does not have this power. She was remanded in custody.

The accused was not at first asked to enter a plea but the charges laid against her on April 13 this year while she was away were formally put to her.

Meanwhile, the 33-year-old Italian widow who seemed relaxed during her first appearance in court was transferred from police headquarters here to the tiny jail of the island state’s capital. She joined the only other female convict in the Vanuatu jail, Rita Carlot, who is serving a two-year sentence for misappropriation.

“If convicted, over the charge she faces the maximum penalty is life imprison ment. But that is not a mandatory penalty as in the United Kingdom. It’s a discre tionary maximum. So she could face any penalty up to life imprisonment,” Baxter-

Wright said.

There is no death penalty in Vanuatu. ■