Widow’s life sentence quashed

Vanuatu’s court of Appeal on November 1 quashed a con

viction of premeditated murder against 30-year-old

Italian expatriate Luciana Mari Picchi, who was last year sentenced to life imprisonment by then Chief Justice Charles Vaudin in the Supreme Court.

In December last year, Vaudin found Luciana Picchi guilty of murdering her husband. Franco Picchi, a 51-year-old Italian builder, with the help of two ni-Vanuatu men, Tui George and Berry Max Jimmy, and the housegirl. Picchi had pleaded not guilty and denied having had a love affair with one of the accom plices, Tui George, or that she’d promise him one million vatu ($US850,000) to kill her husband. Tui and Berry both gave evi dence against her, but their statements didn’t always match.

Vaudin said at the time that because of this, he had “looked sep arately at each evidence” and had come the conclusion that Tui and Berry had been in earnest. “I believe what they said. I have no doubt they’re telling the truth,” he said.

But the court, which met on an ad hoc basis, with New Zealand Justices Bruce Robertson and Douglas Dillon and

Briton Justice Faquir Muhammad, contested Vaudin’s ruling.

“In his 127-page ruling, (Vaudin) failed to address the signif icant issue, that is, credibility in evidence,” Justice Robertson said. “The conviction cannot stay.”

The court said Vaudin had “disposed of evidence” brought to him when he said last year some witnesses had “exaggerated” or “had poor memory” in their testimony. “It was a case of how and why, and not only a matter of recording evidence,” Justice Robertson said. The court, in quashing the convictions against Picchi, set the matter for retrial with a direction to the prosecu tion that they should consider a nulli proscui, effectively admit ting no evidence. “Whether they do so or not is a matter for them to consider over the next few weeks,” Picchi’s lawyer, John Malcolm, said. Minutes after, the court granted bail to the Italian widow, who spent the past 18 months in Port Vila’s tiny jail.

“Whether the prosecution decides to further prosecute or not, the matter should be put before a Supreme Court judge in Vanuatu. But if they decide not to prosecute, she’ll simply be released. And that’s the end of it, totally,” Malcolm said. ■