Monday, March 08, 2010

Mystery woman 'lawyer' arrested


Caption: Mystery 'women lawyer' Helen Mark Kuipa at the MOSIC office at the Boroko police station during her questioning yesterday

City top cop shocked as suspect is a wantok and relative

THE woman "lawyer" who helped suspected bank robber William Nanua Kapris and 11 others escape from the Bomana maximum security facility on Jan 12 was arrested in a house at the Talai settlement in Badili, NCD, on Saturday, The National reports.

What shocked NCD metropolitan commander Chief Supt Fred Yakasa was that she happened to be from the same village as his and is a relative.

"That showed that people from everywhere and anywhere can get involved in this sort of thing, and not just from one area," he told a media conference yesterday.

The woman was identified as Helen Mark Kuipa, 26, from Kupalis village in Wabag, Enga province.

Chief Supt Yakasa said she maybe educated to Grade 11 or 12, or maybe first year at the university.

But she was not a lawyer, he said.

She was caught between 8pm and 10pm at Talai settlement following a tip-off.

Prior to that, she had been moving around from Gerehu to Morata and Nine Mile.

Chief Supt Yakasa said after the Jan 12 escape, Helen had spent one-and-a-half weeks with the fugitives, including Kapris, in and around Sogeri before they made their way back into the city and went separate ways into hiding in various locations.

He said Helen was flown from Lae to Port Moresby in December to play her role in the scheme, to go in and take out the prisoners.

He said her role to pose as a human rights lawyer for prisoner John Siko Wel was planned for her.

He said after her admission to helping the prisoners to escape from Bomana prison, police found that the escape was alleged to have been engineered through her "very close" relationship with BSP bank robbery suspect Kapris.

Helen has been charged with one count of aiding the escape of Siko Wel. She was charged under section 138(a) chapter 262 of the Criminal Code. She faces 11 other charges under this section for the 11 other prisoners who escaped.

She is likely to be charged with armed robbery, impersonating a lawyer and deprivation of liberty. She faces a total of 14 charges.

Chief Supt Yakasa said the Major Organised Crime Investigation Team (MOSIT) was still interrogating Helen on her involvement in the escape and to verify any alleged connection she may have had in relation to the BSP bank robberies of 2008.

He said Helen was cooperating well with police investigators.

He said they were piecing together clues to the puzzle.

"We are getting information about the whole drama. Members of the public with information should come forward."

Five escapees from the Jan 12 breakout still remain at large. On Friday, five escapees who broke out from Bomana last September surrendered to police.

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:00 AM

    What a story! Speechless, oh PNG!! Our country, where are we heading every day???

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous11:37 AM

    Helen, Please, speak out for your own good. You have been used to execute someone's else PLAN OF ACTION.

    COme on speak out.. thats the only way you can save your image, your family image, your tribes image, PNG Image....

    Am sure you will speak out..

    If you do not than, you are the problem...

    Cool

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous5:10 PM

    Get those MPs who are involved in this whole saga...no ordinary people could have done this! Name the leaders who were aledged to been involved in the first place. Kapis was driving a Gov't Minister's 10 seater landcruiser when he was captured just outside Barakau after the Madang BSP bank robery in 2008.

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  4. Anonymous9:34 PM

    Speak out Helen...we want the big fish exposed, you're just a minnow. It defies sanity that Attorney General, Marat can have the guts to visit common criminal Kapis in jail when ordinary law abiding citizens cannot even access him...also acting CS Commissioner had demeaned his office and station to indulge Kapis with courtesy visit...you'd think he is royalty!

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  5. Anonymous11:53 AM

    If woman are making headlines now getting involved in high profile escapes, crimes etc..What'e next? A mystery dog? pig?

    Where is this nation heading?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous1:39 PM

    Helen, Speak out the whole content of the very high frofile event so that the ordinary people of PNG will and wanted to know those high profile people involvement.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous1:06 AM

    Just at first glance at the photo I could tell who she was. I could tell that she was one of the graduates of one of the secondary schools in Lae (BLSS 1998). If I am not wrong, she was in my class.

    I do not want to teach bunch of students to become professional criminals and I believe my fellow teachers would share the same sentiment. If the government sees fit to establish new learning institutions for the growing population, why not they also create job opportunities for those who pass out of those institutions.

    Each year we are graduating more criminals.

    We are DOOMED by the actions of the minority.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous7:51 PM

    Helen should have all the name of high profile people involved in organizing the jail break out and I am sure she will reveal all names for the good of the nation and our international image.

    ReplyDelete