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99 men charged over the killings of seven people, whom they believed were practising sorcery, appeared in Court in Papua New Guinea on March 23.
Earlier on 122 suspects had appeared in court charged with wilful murder – in relation to the same incident in April 2014.he suspects were detained at Gusap police station and subsequently brought to Madang.
Of the 122 men charged, 99 reportedly appeared in the Madang national on March 23, with the trial set to begin in April.
Meanwhile they have been remanded in custody.
Twenty-four others failed to show. One other suspect had since died.
69 young men who were juveniles at that time were also charged and left back in Gusap , the youngest was a 10- year-old boy.
They were were accused of being in procession of offensive weapons and were given court fines of K200.
The alleged killing happened in the Naho Rawa Local Level Government area of Raicoas District in April 2014.
A party of men from six different villages in the Tauta area, raided Sakiko village located at the back of Ramu Sugar township in April, 2014.
Shortly after the incident a mass arrest was made by a police party under the command of former Madang provincial police commander Chief Inspector Sylvester Kalaut.
The suspects were detained at Gusap police station and subsequently brought to Madang. They were released on bail later.
At the time of the arrests Kalaut said the men were part of the group called “haus man”.
The suspects are alleged to have killed five men they encountered while raiding the village, shooting them with arrows and hacking them with machetes.
One of them was then thrown into a burning house.
It is also alleged that they killed two boys, aged three and five, by slashing them with machetes.
Source
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News category: Asia Pacific.
