Six jailed for kidnapping in Vanuatu lodge saga
Six men who led a baying mob armed with stones, knives and axes to a New Zealand-owned luxury lodge in Vanuatu have been jailed for kidnapping.
On August 10 last year the men led a 100-strong mob to Hugh Lowe’s Tanna Island lodge, which was burned down in an attack that led tourists staying there to flee for their lives.
On the same day, the six kidnapped two workers to question them over an alleged murder, a Vanuatu court has found.
Lowe’s teenage son, Ned Lowe, 18, had been charged with the intentional homicide of his friend Roger Kamisak on the island a month earlier. But in a sensational ruling in March, a Supreme Court judge called the prosecution case ‘‘weak, vague and inconsistent’’, and threw the case out.
Vanuatu police had told media a love triangle was behind the killing – that Ned and Roger argued over a girl before Ned allegedly bashed his mate with a hunk of wood and stabbed him with a knife.
A Tanna Island chief was dissatisfied with the investigation into the death and sent the six men to the resort to fetch two employees for questioning.
According to a court judgement, the meeting was a ‘‘local custom’’ and ‘‘this type of meeting is not unusual’’.
The court heard that the chief questioned the two staff for three hours.
The judge noted that although none of the six men carried weapons, others in the 100-strong crowd had with them ‘‘stones, knives and axes. Some of the defendants used threatening words’’.
The male employee, Richard Iaruel, ‘‘thought they were going to kill him’’, and the female employee, Alice Willie ‘‘was frightened and surrendered herself’’. Others at the resort were ‘‘very frightened’’.
The judge said: ‘‘The actions and conduct of the defendants . . . were intolerable and unacceptable in any society, community, island or village’’.
‘‘The chief and people of Ianmarang and Ivankula and other villages of Tanna Island must respect and obey the law. The defendants must understand that all persons in Vanuatu, including persons living and residing on Tanna Island, have rights which are protected by law. The defendants cannot take the law into their own hands and do justice as they wish.’’
The six were jailed for two years for unlawful assembly and kidnapping, but plan to appeal the sentence.