A very special group of New Zealand youth have ensured Poutasi students get the best education possible through their generosity and sharing of knowledge.

For three weeks 19 students from Auckland’s Kirstin School have spent time in in the southern Upolu village, experiencing all that Poutasi has to offer.

Falealili College Principal Ula Meleisea said the friendship between the schools began when Tuatagaloa Joe Annandale informed them that there was an institution from New Zealand who wanted to help in the time following the 2009 tsunami.

“Tuatagaloa, mentioned that there was a school that wanted to give us support and contributions,” she said.

“Because our school was one of the colleges that was badly damaged and destroyed by the tsunami 2009.”

“We didn’t even have a school building then. So I said okay welcome them, I want to meet them.”

And so she did, with the staff from Kirstin School making the journey to Poutasi.

“We had a talk and we looked around for something that they could contribute to and support our situation at the time,” said Mrs Meleisea.

“And then they went away for three months and returned with lots of resources for us.”

“The ovens and stoves, the sewing machines and fridges for the Food and Textiles Technology class.”

“The P.A. system, computers and laptops – that was all two years ago.”

This year is the second time a group of Kirstin School students have visited Poutasi with their teacher Carl Murray saying they were already planning their 2016 trip.

“We have done the three different schools this trip,” he said referring to the time his students spent at Poutasi Saleilua Primary School, Falealili College and the Poutasi Preschool.

“And had lots of fun in the secondary and primary schools and then when you go down to the little anklebiters in the preschool and it was just great.”

He said this particular trip was focussed on how they could help the Falealili students access the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture’s (M.E.S.C.) SchoolNet system.

SchoolNet is a virtual library with the server being the shelves that holds all the books and electronic resources and the computer, is the main tool for accessing and using these resources.

It allows a teacher to use audio, images or other visualisations to create an interesting impact in his or her lesson and allows students to access electronic books or references for specific topics, or use simulations for scientific experiments without actually working in a lab with real chemicals, beakers, tubes if you can imagine what are used in science labs.

In a bid to help the Falealili students access this resource, Kirstin School provided HP 7 Plus tablets.

“So we provided 100 wireless tablets that can link in and get their textbooks and jump onto the Ministry’s SchoolNet system, and that is really good,” Mr Murray said.

“The year 12 and 13s, is where a lot of it will be heading but it will filter down throughout the school.”

“We have run a couple of presentations here to tech the kids how to use them and the teachers all had a presentation a professional learning session as well on how to use them.”

Mrs. Meleisea said the tablets Kirsten school donated this year would be the most help for her school.

“We are using them since we don’t have all the schemes available,” she said.

“Because some schemes from the curriculum some books are missing so therefore they have downloaded and programmed the SchoolNet program into the tablets so we can use them.”

“It is very handy and convenient.”

Mrs. Meleisea said what was most special about this trip was the local students were able to share the Samoan culture with the New Zealand Students.

Twice, through a buddy system, Kirstin students returned home with a Falealili student for a few hours to experience first hand village life.

“The first group did not have any time to go out in the field and visit some Samoan families,” she said.

“But this group has gone to the Samoan families twice so that is the most important thing.”

“The other thing is that they were able to meet my students and participate in the classes.”

Mr Murray said that this was one of the best parts of the trip for his students.

“It really exposes these guys to the extended family,” he said.

“We get way more out of the partnership than they do just in terms of the culture and the caring nature of them they are just such fun people.”

For Kirstin School student Daniel Clark, there were challenges to the visit – challenges he was happy to overcome.

It was his second visit to Samoa – in 2012 he holidayed here with his family.

“It was a challenge just to try and fit in with the culture and the surroundings and the people who we lived with,” he said.

“Even people who we came on the trip with we didn’t know them that well.”

“And it has just been hard to adapt to things like the climate and the food and the traditions and the customs involved with the culture.”

So how did he rise up and meet these challenges.

“Just by trying to get in amongst it and getting used to it,” he said.

“And now it has become the norm we have done it so many times now after three weeks.”

He said the highlight of the trip for him was just being in Samoa.

“And definitely just visiting the preschool and the primary school and obviously the college have been the highlights.”

“As well as seeing Samoa again.”

Mr. Murray said next year two Falealili College students and a teacher would visit the Kirstin School for about a month.

“It is kind of professional learning for the teacher and just allowing the student to be exposed to a different culture,” he said.

“Which is what it is for us when we come here to Samoa.”

“And then we have just established a full two year scholarship for a year 12 student to come to New Zealand to do their year 12 and 13 schooling.”

“A boy is coming who is currently in year 11 here. so he will do year 12 and year 13 at Kirstin School so that is really exciting.”

Mrs. Meleisea concluded simply saying:

“We are just so very grateful to this school.

They have done a lot for us.”

Polynesian Airline’s profitability improved almost a hundred per cent for the financial year ending 2010. That’s according to Controller and Chief Auditor, Fuimaono Camillo Afele.

In his report to Parliament, Fuimaono said the financial performance of the company reflected an increase in net profit after tax from $2,459,282 in the prior year to $4,590,516 in the current year.

“The financial position of the company had improved with a 95% increase in net assets,” his report reads.

Despite the outstanding financial performance, the Controller and Chief Auditor also found some gaps in the airline’s performance.

For example, he found that some of the policies have not been amended to reflect the new systems and policies currently practiced.

“(There was) no reconciliations prepared for some liability accounts,” Fuimaono reports.

“Some fixed assets at Faleolo were not properly identified and labelled. There were accounts receivables with credit balances that management should review to determine appropriate action for clearance from the financial statements.

“A fraud case involving an employee in Pago Pago had not been settled because the Office was trying to locate the suspected employee.”

Polynesian Air took the time to respond to the issues noted by Fuimaono.

“The re-write of the Finance Manual to reflect the new systems and processes since the downscaling of the company’s operation is still to be completed but it is not presenting any obstacles in the company’s operation,” it responded.

“These liability accounts belong to the old regime and are no longer in existence as of the current financial year ending 30 June 2012.

“These fixed assets at Faleolo are still not being labelled but most are well identified; “The remaining credit balances in accounts receivable are re-classified as creditors for disclosure in Annual Accounts.

“The suspected employee in Pago Pago has been located and he has been making repayments of his debt in accordance with an agreement we have established with him.”

The report is published verbatim below:

Polynesian Limited

Financial year: 30 June 2010 Audit opinion: Unqualified Auditor: Lesa ma Penn Summary of audit findings:

1. The financial performance of the company reflected an increase in net profit after tax from $2,459,282 in the prior year to $4,590,516 in the current year.

2. The financial position of the company had improved with a 95% increase in net assets.

3. Other matters identified during the audit included:

• The Finance Manual was published in January 1996 and some of the policies have not been amended to reflect the new systems and policies currently practiced;

• No reconciliations were prepared for some liability accounts;

• Some fixed assets at Faleolo were not properly identified and labeled;

• There were accounts receivables with credit balances that management should review to determine appropriate action for clearance from the financial statements;

• A fraud case involving an employee in Pago Pago had not been settled because the Office was trying to locate the suspected employee.

4. The Company responded as follows:

• The re-write of the Finance Manual to reflect the new systems and processes since the downscaling of the company’s operation is still to be completed but it is not presenting any obstacles in the company’s operation;

• These liability accounts belong to the old regime and are no longer in existence as of the current financial year ending 30 June 2012;

• These fixed assets at Faleolo are still not being labeled but most are well identified;

• The remaining credit balances in accounts receivable are re-classified as creditors for disclosure in Annual Accounts;

• The suspected employee in Pago Pago has been located and he has been making repayments of his debt in accordance with an agreement we have established with him.

Referring to his client, Lei’ataualesa said it would be an injustice if the wrong person is convicted. Further, convicting the wrong person would also be an injustice to the late Mr Risale and Mr Heather

One side is convinced beyond reasonable doubt that Leslie Kohlhase is guilty, the other strongly disagrees.

That was the nature of the arguments presented before the Supreme Court yesterday as the hearing of Kohlhase winds down.

Kohlhase faces four charges in relation to the deaths of Jessie Risale, 22, of Vaimoso and Thesaurus Heather, 20, of Tufuiopa. She has pleaded not guilty to two counts of manslaughter and two alternative charges of negligent driving causing death.

Kohlhase is represented by Lei’ataualesa Daryl Clarke. They are up against the prosecution team made up of Precious Chang and Leone Su’a Mailo, of the Attorney General’s Office.

The Chief Justice, His Honour Patu Tiava’asu’e Falefatu Sapolu is presiding over the assessor trial.

Yesterday, Mrs Su’a-Mailo told the assessors that if they look back through the evidence presented during the past three weeks, the prosecution has proven beyond reasonable doubt that Kohlhase indeed drove the vehicle that crashed and killed the two young men last year.

The lawyer said it has been proven that Kohlhase was behind the wheel of the vehicle. Further, it has been established quite clearly that the accused drove recklessly that night, endangering the lives of people in the car.

More than twenty witnesses including police officers, medical doctors, as well as eye-witnesses at the crash site have all testified about what they saw. During the proceedings, Mrs Su’a-Mailo said the evidence included photographs and aerial maps which all point to one conclusion and that is the accused is guilty.

“The prosecution’s submission is that Leslie did drive the vehicle at the material time of the accident,” the assessors were told.

“It all boils down to who was the driver of the car. I ask you not to be side tracked with Fa’atoia [Tupu being the driver].”

Mrs Su’a-Mailo said this particular case was a “very tragic and sad story” and those involved were “very young.”

That aside, the law states that when a person acts negligently, he/ she must be punished, “The law does not differentiate on who it applies to, it applies to all people who are in charge of a motor vehicle.”

But Lei'ataualesa disagrees.

He reiterated that Kohlhase did not drive the vehicle when it crashed.

The lawyer reminded the assessors that they have already provided witnesses, including one Fesola’i Laki Ifale, who saw Kohlhase walking away from the driver’s side.

“The deaths of Jessie Risale and Thesaurus Heather is no doubt a tragedy,” said Lei'ataualesa. “They were two young men with their lives ahead of them.”

Their deaths have had a ripple effect on the community, he stressed.

But the incident has also meant that Kohlhase’s life “has been changed forever.”

He said his client has been deeply affected by what had happened.

For her sake, he said “justice” must be done and to achieve this, “make sure the right person is punished.”

Referring to his client, Lei’ataualesa said it would be an injustice if the wrong person is convicted for the crime. Further, convicting the wrong person would also be an injustice to the late Mr Risale and Mr Heather, he said.

Kohlhase’s lawyer said evidence throughout the past three weeks has proven that his client was not the driver when the crash happened.

The hearing continues this morning when Lei'ataualesa is expected to complete his final submission.

The National University of Samoa (N.U.S) has failed to uphold good accounting keeping practices, the Controller and Chief Auditor has reported.

In the Controller and Chief Auditor’s Report to the Legislative Assembly for financial year ending 2011, Fuimaono C G Afele reports that in spite of this, the Institution was able to report improved financial results, which were put down to non-recurring costs.

“The University’s financial performance improved tremendously achieving an excess of income over expenditure of $1,435,559 compared to an excess of expenditure over income of $2,624,435 in the prior year,” the Auditor’s report reads.

“The improved results were due to non-recurring costs of $2,431,002 which occurred in the prior year and none for the current financial year. In addition, total income increased by 6.5 per cent while total expenses decreased by 3.8 per cent.”

However, notwithstanding this result, Fuimaono did note several issues with the institution’s account keeping practices.

“The University’s financial position showed that the University could not meet its short term obligations using its short term assets,” the Auditor reports.

“NUS Consult Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of the University, whose financial activities and results have not been consolidated with the results of the University’s financial activities.

Cash collected at the Bookshop were not handed over to the Finance division on a daily basis and therefore such receipts were not banked daily in accordance with generally accepted accounting practice.

“There was no policy to regulate and control the use of the University’s credit cards.” The report is republished in full below:

National University of Samoa Financial year: 30 June 2010 Audit opinion: Unqualified Auditor: Betham & Co Summary of audit findings: 1. The University’s financial performance improved tremendously achieving an excess of income over expenditure of $1,435,559 compared to an excess of expenditure over income of $2,624,435 in the prior year. The improved results were due to non-recurring costs of $2,431,002 which occurred in the prior year and none for the current financial year. In addition, total income increased by 6.5% while total expenses decreased by 3.8%.

2. The University’s financial position showed that the University could not meet its short term obligations using its short term assets.

3. NUS Consult Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of the University, whose financial activities and results have not been consolidated with the results of the University’s financial activities.

4. Cash collected at the Bookshop were not handed over to the Finance division on a daily basis and therefore such receipts were not banked daily in accordance with generally accepted accounting practice.

5. There was no policy to regulate and control the use of the University’s credit cards.

6. The University was invited to send comments and clarifications including an update on remedial and corrective actions taken before the report went to printing. When the report was finalized for printing, no response had been received.

The one-day food festival and food tasting exhibition was a big hit for locals and visitors alike yesterday

Held at the Samoa Tourism Authority’s grounds in Apia, some eighty local cooks chosen to be part of the S.I.D.S and the Teuila Food Festival were given the opportunity to show off their skills and their food for visitors to the exhibition.

Members of the public were given the chance to buy food from the food vendors at a very reasonable price.

They were also given a sheet to rate the food and comment on what needs to be done to improve the food before S.I.D.S and the Teuila Food Festival.

So what did some of them think?

“I was pleasantly surprised,” Sina Viole Toamua told the Weekend Observer. “I think they’ve done a wonderful job in lifting the standards in terms of hygiene and how the food is presented.”

Sina added that she does not understand why local food is not presented in such a way every day.

“This kind of setting makes you want to eat and that’s what we want.”

as John, said there was so much to choose from that he couldn’t quite work out what to eat.

“In the end I had a fa’alifu fa’i and some kebabs,” he said. “It was delicious. I hope they keep this up.”

An Australian tourist, Joyce, said she was impressed by the setting, including customer service and the uniforms.

“It has that real festival atmosphere and I enjoyed it.”

What about the food?

“I had palusami and some taro and it was heavenly.”

Later in the afternoon, Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi, dropped by. He was among a host of Members of Parliament and official guests who sampled the food.

“This initiative is the outcome of close ties and collaboration between the government of Samoa and the government of New Zealand to develop our local foods and recipes,” Tuilaepa said during his keynote address.

Tuilaepa said the project saw the selected cooks trained at the Australia Pacific Technical College on areas such as proper food preparation up to the presentation of their dishes.

“In addition to food handling, food safety and preparations, they also undertook other training including courses by the Ministry of Health on personal hygiene…” The Samoa Tourism Authority also helped them with customer service skills.

Tuilaepa said such trainings would not have been possible without the active involvement of award-winning Chef and Author, Robert Oliver.

“He is a New Zealander who grew up in Samoa and who has researched and promoted recipes from Samoa, the heart of Polynesia, on the world stage.”

“His book showcases the recipes that we cook for family and community celebration with locally sourced ingredients.”

“These are all a part of the preparations by our government, in not only creating economic opportunities for all, but especially in preparation for the upcoming Teuila Festival and the S.I.D.S Conference in September.”

Tuilaepa then encouraged the cooks to do their best and show the world the best that Samoa has to offer.

“The global community will be visiting Samoa during the S.I.D.S Conference and so Samoa must show the world our best.”

“We therefore have come today to witness the food prepared by our specially trained cooks for our evaluation and hopefully our enjoyment.”

A “significant culture of corruption” and “exploitation” exists at Tafa’igata Prison. Further, the jail is being run by a “sad state of leadership” whom “we cannot assert with any element of confidence that basic honesty and truthfulness are (its) strong points.”

These are among numerous shocking discoveries made by the Commission of Inquiry, which had been tasked to investigate allegations of mismanagement and misadministration at the Prison.

A copy of the report has been obtained by the Sunday Samoan.

The Commission of Inquiry was chaired by the Ombudsman, Maiava Iulai Toma. Other members of the Commission were Gatoloa’i Tili Afamasaga and Su’a Tanielu Su’a. Lawyers Sine Lafaiali’i Koria and Sefo Ainuu, of the Attorney General’s Office, assisted.

The Inquiry was prompted by an anonymous “ghost letter” and sequel correspondence pointing to widespread misconduct and deviant sexual activity in Tafa’igata Prison.

The letter alluded to liaisons between police officers and inmates and to rampant homosexuality among female inmates and with wardens. It also alleged favouritism in the treatment of officers in the Samoa Police Force.

The Commission confirmed many of the allegations.

“The significant culture of petty corruption, prisoner ill treatment and exploitation that is flourishing in Tafaigata is directly linked to the absence of prescriptions in Regulations for proper warden conduct and the inability of Prison leadership to breach this serious gap,” the report reads.

“Prison staff contempt of ordinary decencies towards prisoners, open disregard of the strict prohibition against alcohol consumption within prison precincts and the creeping abuse of concessions allowed to them as in personal crop plantings on prison land, illustrate the shocking state of professional conduct prevailing in Tafaigata and the inability of prison leadership to impose appropriate standards.”

The Commissioner added that: “We cannot assert with any element of confidence that basic honesty and truthfulness are strong points of Samoa Police.

As an ongoing phenomenon, this sad state of affairs reflects directly upon leadership.”

The Commission also delved into a number of individual cases at the prison.

One such case is the unsolved mystery surrounding the death of New Zealand mental health patient, Hans Dalton.

“The event described above (Dalton’s death) tells of the pitifully low level of performance that Tafaigata prison through habit has permanently set for itself to deliver,” the Commission’s report reads.

“It reflects miserably also on the capacity of Samoa Police to be sensitive and responsive to the situation of an ill person in desperate need of relief from his mental anxieties.”

The actions taken by the Police after Dalton’s death were also questioned.

The investigation ordered by the Commissioner of Police focussed on shortcomings in the actions within the cell block of the lowest ranked prison officers involved.

Disciplinary charges of negligent performance in not locking the individual cells were laid against the Senior Constable who was in charge and two duty constables.

“The two constables quickly pleaded guilty to the charges even though it is clear that leaving the cells unlocked in this cell block had been common practice. The two constables were dismissed. The Senior Constable team leader while admitting in statements to the PSU that he had not locked Dalton’s cell and throwing himself at the mercy of the Commissioner, chose to defend the disciplinary charges against him.”

According to the Commission, to date, these charges have yet to be heard by a Police Tribunal.

“No one else was held to account for the tragic events of Christmas and Boxing Day 2012 at Tafaigata Prison."

“An observable manifestation of the creeping abandonment of prisons by the Ministry over the years is the absence of any verifiable active interest by police command in prisons performance. Where there is little expectation of quality performance or even of the mere possibility of it, little performance in fact emerges. Delegation is a vital factor to operational success in the Police. Over reliance on delegation appears to have been a downfall here.”

In relation to claims of “improper liaisons in prison,” the Commissioner highlighted “one particularly lurid story” involving an Assistant Commissioner.

“This story had come to the attention of the Commissioner of Police who directed investigation by the Professional Standards Unit (PSU) of Police. From the perspective of indictable wrong doing the PSU concluded that there was nothing with which to further proceed,” the Commission reports.

“From the perspective however of possible questionable personal conduct, the findings of one PSU investigator did indicate sufficient reason for further examination whether or not disciplinary charges against the Assistant Commissioner could be justified. This further step was not taken by PSU."

“Our own enquiries tell us that at the very least, what could have been looked at was failure on the part of the Assistant Commissioner to exercise good judgement in allowing himself to be alone, if in fact he was alone, with a female inmate in circumstances with high potential of impacting adversely upon the reputation of the Police and Prisons Service."

“The female inmate was required to fofo (treat by massage) the Assistant Commissioner’s legs for a skin disorder. The Assistant Commissioner’s wife had picked up the female inmate from prison and brought her home on the occasions of the fofo treatment.”

The Commission said it has sworn evidence from both the Assistant Commissioner and his wife that the Assistant Commissioner was never alone with the female inmate in question.

However, “we learned on the other hand that the PSU in their investigations had discovered a witness at the spot to dispute the evidence of the Assistant Commissioner and his wife for one visit occasion. This witness is a prisoner with no apparent reason to lie."

“In contrast the fofo practitioner inmate who subsequently told what allegedly happened in one particular session to anyone who would listen had been described by the Chief Justice in trial as someone hard to believe."

“It turns out also that an alleged intimate condition this witness categorically claims to have diagnosed of the Assistant Commissioner during the last and allegedly more extensive fofo encounter was not confirmed by hospital records. In all of the circumstances the lurid aspects of her story are very suspect."

“It would appear that physical contact with female inmates is a matter of little consequence to the mind of the Assistant Commissioner.”

The Commission also highlighted other sexual concerns.

“Homosexual activity at Tafa’igata prison featured prominently in the “ghost letter”. The indulgence of individuals in homosexual activity is we think no fabrication but cannot be said to be unusually extensive. It does not appear to be an issue at all in the male sector of the prison."

“With regard to heterosexual liaisons, the Commission was made aware of information allegedly implicating, a former prison chief in a liaison with an inmate who became pregnant and went through an abortion during her time in gaol."

“The prisoner concerned was convicted for her part in events along with a fellow inmate for procuring the abortion. Nothing of the kind eventuated with regard to the alleged involvement of the former prison boss in the affair."

“The Commission was made aware of another pregnancy with an insinuated connection to the current Assistant Commissioner. The aborted baby in this case had been unearthed at Aleisa on or about August 2011 some months after it had been buried. The supposed mother, a prison officer at the time of the discoveries was alleged in “ghost letter” dispatches to have been then in an affair with the Assistant Commissioner."

“For some reason the outcome of the police investigation of possible charges against the woman in connection with the discovery of the baby’s remains have yet to be formally concluded following forensic and DNA analysis in New Zealand of specimen evidence."

“The Commission was told that the DNA results did not provide the clear linkage sought by Police in their enquiries. It is puzzling that the police are taking so long to use the DNA results to clear matters up with regard to the individuals so far implicated by rumour."

“The long delay has served to fan speculation and innuendo surrounding the rumoured affair between the Assistant Commissioner and the woman concerned. The insinuated paternity linkage seems farfetched however unless the alleged affair had commenced months before the woman in question was ever recruited into Tafaigata service.

“The rumoured affair itself on the other hand was made more credible in interested minds by another quite separate development. The female officer involved was suspended on pay pending the outcome of criminal charges against her from an unrelated complaint. It transpired that after the Court had disposed of the matter the woman continued to be paid for about a year and 4 months before her employment with police was quietly terminated, supposedly because the ghost letter had drawn public attention to the matter."

“The sequence of events was perceived as favoured treatment because of the affair between the woman and the Police Commissioner’s friend. The Commissioner attributes it to oversight."

“The Commission can point with some certainty to only one sexual relationship mentioned in “ghost letter” dispatches. This was an affair between a female prison officer and a male inmate. The police officer happens to be the same officer alleged to have been active in facilitating link-ups between inmates.”

The Commission also investigated claims of attempted intercourse between Police officers.

“A young police woman told the Commission of Inquiry that she had had to fight off the officer in charge of her shift who was bent on having intercourse with her on two occasions during duty hours. The woman was barely an adult at the time and had been assigned to duties at the Faleata Police post,” the report reads.

“The attacks had occurred about three weeks apart in the small hours of the morning when other officers were on patrol leaving only the senior sergeant and herself in the police post. According to the witness she was accosted while napping. She was physically overwhelmed on both occasions by the commanding officer’s strength, slaps and vicious pinching as she struggled with him to keep her clothes on.

“She was luckily spared the ultimate violation on each occasion by the man’s own physical inabilities at the crucial stages of his attacks.”

The Commission’s report was handed to Cabinet several months ago.

At the time, Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi, said Cabinet has “fully approved the recommendations.”

“The 75-page report lucidly outlined several management and administrative problems at the Ministry and validated unfavourable conditions, unflattering incidents and incongruous behaviour at the country’s main prison,” he said.

The Prime Minister pointed out that the Inquiry supported the decision by the Minister of Police and Prisons, Sala Fata Pinati, to separate the Prison from the Police.

“The recommendation has resulted with the view that it is necessary for Tafa’igata Prison to be made independent from the Ministry of Police,” said Tuilaepa.

Tuilaepa said the only way “to improve (the running of) Tafa’igata (Prison) is to separate it from the Ministry.”

"That way, a separate Commissioner will be responsible for the Prison."

“Since the Commissioner is based here at the Ministry (of Police), he tends to give all his attention to the Ministry and not to the prison,” said the Prime Minister.

Since that interview with the Prime Minister, the government has appointed Taitosaua Edward Winsterstein as the Commissioner of the newly established Prisons and Correction Services.

The Assistant Commissioner, Sala Uili Seaga, who had looked after the prison has resigned. Meanwhile, a second Commission of Inquiry was ordered to look at suspended Police Commissioner, Lilomaiava Fou Taioalo’s performance. That Inquiry ended last Thursday.

Below is the Commission of Inquiry’s report published in verbatim:

Preface The Commission of Inquiry (“COI”) was appointed on 6 September 2013 by His Highness the Head of State in the following manner:

ALLEGATIONS PERTAINING TO THE MISMANAGEMENT AND MISADMINISTRATION OF TAFAIGATA PRISONS AND OTHER RELATED ISSUES I TUI ATUA TUPUA TAMASESE EFI, Head of State of the Independent State of Samoa, acting on the advice of Cabinet, pursuant to section 4 of the Commission of Inquiry Act 1964, APPOINT the following persons:

1. Maiava Iulai Toma – Chairperson;

2. Gatoloai Tili Afamasaga – Member;

3. Su’a Tanielu Su’a – Member; and 4. Sine Lafaialii Koria and Sefo Ainuu – Counsels Assisting.

To be a Commission to inquire into and report to Cabinet and to no one else, the matters relating to the subject matter in accordance with the Terms of Reference in F.K (12) 28 dated 16 August 2012 and F.K (13) 30 dated 21 August 2013.

The Terms of Reference (TOR) were as follows:

1. To review the administration of the Prison Service relating to:

a. The general management of prison;

b. The handling of complaints filed by prisoners and police officers;

c. The treatment of prisoners in terms of accommodation and meals;

d. The treatment/mistreatment of prisoners including the cells they are placed and how they are treated by the Prison officers;

e. The release of prisoners on weekend parole;

f. The posting of prisoners outside of prison; g. The relevance of Programmes offered to Prisoners which includes the context of the programmes and its aims and objectives and that such programmes shall not have a negative effect or create more problems for the Prisons Division. (e.g. religious programmes);

h. Any other relevant administration matter that may come up during the inquiry.

2. To review the relationship between Police officers and prisoners relating to:

a. The alleged giving or loaning of money by prisoners to Police officers; b. The alleged affairs involving Police officers, prisoners and spouses and relatives of prisoners;

c. Any other relevant relationship matter that may come up during the inquiry.

3. To consider submissions relating to the cause of recurring instances of escape by prisoners from Tafaigata Prison.

4. To review the methods used by Police to re-capture escaped prisoners.

5. To refer any matters of criminal or disciplinary matters to the Professional Standards Unit to investigate.

6. To review the guidelines relating to Prison Officers which includes their employment, suspension, termination, conduct, scope of authority, disciplinary proceedings and how effective they are.

7. To provide recommendations regarding ways or methods to resolve the various issues that keep arising from the way the prison officers carry out their work. 8. The TOR may be extended to address any other issues that the Commission may come across and wish to include in its TOR during the course of the inquiry.

9. For the Commission to report back to Cabinet within four (4) months from the date of the warrant.

-------------------------- Parties to the Inquiry Both the Commissioner of Police and the Assistant Commissioner (Prisons) made application at the outset to be cited as parties.

The Assistant Commissioner’s application was granted.

With regard to the Commissioner’s application the Commission had this to say1:

“Just because the inquiry is about the Police and Prisons and the Commissioner is Head of Police and Prisons do not on those grounds alone necessarily mean that risk for him being adversely affected justify citing him as a party to the inquiry. We are authorized and charged with responsibility to make an inquiry.

As there are no accusers or prosecutors here, we are taking a pragmatic approach to citing parties to this inquiry, bearing very much in mind evidence that already appears to be out there for us to hear and any that may emerge. To that end we ask ourselves the questions:

• How is the Commissioner implicated?

• To what extent is his conduct the focus of evidence coming before the Commission?

• Are there particular attacks upon him?

• Is he the object of allegations in existence?

• Is his conduct or reputation adversely reflected upon in evidence giving rise to any right to challenge that evidence as opposed to any indirect or peripheral impact upon him?

We are not concerned at this time with prospects of peripheral or more remote matters such as any issue of vicarious responsibility. Should issues of that kind arise they will be addressed as such in appropriate manner. Having asked ourselves these questions, we do not think it unfair treatment of the Commissioner at this time to deny his application to be treated as a party to this inquiry.

Should the situation change as the inquiry progresses the Commissioner will be informed and invited to renew his application.

We will remain mindful throughout this inquiry of the Commissioner’s right to fair treatment with regard to evidence that may arise concerning him. We will ensure that any evidence that may arise during the course of the inquiry which may implicate the Commissioner, Counsel assisting will ensure that transcripts of such evidence will be provided to the Commissioner so that he can appear before the Commission and make submissions.

We have another concern in the public interest which we will not keep secret. We are concerned with conduct and expressions refl ecting a sense of intimidation among potential witnesses with regard to providing information to the inquiry. Given the circumstances in which such potential witnesses fi nd themselves, there can be a risk to the free fl ow of information of the very kind and from the very sources that the Commission of Inquiry must hear in order to properly carry out the task we are authorized and charged to do. To be plain, the participation of the Commissioner of Police in person or by proxy in these proceedings may hamper the effectiveness of the Commission of Inquiry process with regard to some matters, not in all, but some matters of our Terms of Reference.”

On 18 November 2013 the Commissioner renewed his application to be cited as a party. The application was granted.

Contributors to Report This Commission of Inquiry Report has been developed with the support of members of the public, police officers, prisoners, and former prisoners. The Commission began its inquiry on 20 September 2013 and concluded its hearings on 29 November 2013. The Commission heard from 144 witnesses.

Additionally the Commission made visits to the Tafaigata, Olomanu and Vaiaata prisons as well as to the Tuasivi police lock-up facility.

The Commission would like to acknowledge and thank those who have contributed to this inquiry. We would especially like to thank those who were able to speak candidly about issues which were sensitive for them and to their own situations. The Commission hopes the Report has formulated recommendations that are relevant to the development of law and order in Samoa.

Introduction The Commission of Inquiry was prompted by an anonymous “ghost letter” and sequel correspondence pointing to widespread misconduct and deviant sexual activity in Tafaigata Prison. Ghost letter correspondence alluded to liaisons between police officers and inmates and to rampant homosexuality among female inmates and with wardens. It also alleged favouritism in the treatment of officers in the Samoa Police Force.

Police investigation of the ghost letter allegations did not turn up anything of great interest to the police nor did a rush of witnesses eventuate to give incriminating evidence of sexual liaisons or other deviant activities to the Commission of Inquiry.

Ghost letter aside, the Commission of Inquiry has been an opportunity to look at the police in operation both in the prisons and in general policing at an interesting juncture in the Ministry’s development.

Whereas general policing has been at the receiving end of massive technical and capital assistance to push forward its development and modernization, prisons policing has been left to scratch and scrape for survival by whatever means it could make things to work. The physical condition as well as the staffing of the prisons in terms of both quantity and quality reflects the reality of this situation.

Even so, it has to be said that the Prison Service with all its faults as identified in this report and despite the difficulties has been quite successful in achieving the limited objective of containing incarcerated persons away from the general population. It has achieved this at the lowest cost possible upon the public purse. Its modus operandi, derived from years of experience deliberately utilizes mechanisms, dynamic forces and influences inherent in communal existence and traditional styles of human interaction. While this is proving effective for most inmates there is no avoiding the harsh ‘lock up’ option for a very small percentage of the incarcerated population who do not assimilate.

At the completion of the inquiry the Commission has concluded among other things that:

• All three prisons and particularly Vaia’ata and Oloamanu prisons provide clear proof that a largely open type prison system which harnesses the social dynamics of traditional communal existence can work in Samoa. Competent leadership and quality staff is key to success. The visible ever available hard ‘lock up’ alternative while a necessity for the few serves as effective deterrent for the rest.

• The significant culture of petty corruption, prisoner ill treatment and exploitation that is flourishing in Tafaigata is directly linked to the absence of prescriptions in Regulations for proper warden conduct and the inability of Prison leadership to breach this serious gap.

• Modernized facilities are essential including an urgently needed substitute for the facilities that are currently used to house people held in custody.

• While noting impressive transformation in recent years enabling the police to regularly contribute to international peace keeping operations it is not obvious that infrastructural and institutional strengthening achieved has improved police performance of its core functions at home. • Within the rank and file of police there is either inadequate appreciation of police duty to be accountable in the exercise of power, or little inclination to so act.

• It cannot assert with any element of confidence that basic honesty and truthfulness are strong points of Samoa Police.

Recommendations in this report seek to address concerns raised by the TOR and others which arose during the inquiry.

The Report is presented in two chapters:

Chapter 1 on Prisons Policing looks at the prisons establishment at Tafaigata in particular; its physical structures and institutional framework. It discusses the treatment of prisoners, the conduct of prison officers and examines some of the complaints made against prison management as well as improper activities alleged to have happened in the prison.

Chapter 2 on General Policing gives an overview of recent developments which have transformed Samoa Police to impressive new capacities. It examines allegations of differential treatment of officers within police as well as allegations of abuse of power and demonstrated lack of accountability by police. CHAPTER 1: PRISONS POLICING 1.1 The Prisons Establishment - a quick eye opener

Samoa’s prison population as of 26 September 2013 comprised of four hundred fifty seven (457) male and thirty-six (36) female inmates. Seventy six (76) males and three (3) females were also being held in custody at Tafaigata Prison making a grand total of five hundred seventy two (572) detained persons. Except for a high concrete wall under construction around the small women’s compound situated within Tafaigata prison, there are no perimeter security walls around any of the three detention facilities.

Tafaigata, the main prison and top security unit is only a twenty minute drive from Apia. Vaiaata prison in Savaii and Olomanu, a prison opened in November 2006 for young offenders, are both very low security facilities for male inmates. The latter two facilities have neither security fencing nor a single lock-up cell.

Forty seven (47) prison officers under the command of the Commissioner of Police through an Assistant Commissioner as the Chief Gaoler are responsible for and maintain prisons security without visible arms of any kind. It is quite normal on the other hand for large gangs of often twenty or more prisoners, each with a razor sharp machete, to be supervised in plantation work by one or two unarmed policemen far from the prison buildings and other prison officers. This never fails to impress or stun people when they see it or when it is recounted to them by Samoan prison officials. The latter explain it in terms of Samoan culture and traditional modes of interaction between officers and inmates.

Without detracting from the remarkable achievements of prison officers in truly risky circumstances on the job, it is undoubtedly the case that the system works and operates with minimal visible structural support because of its functionally effective basis in fear and intimidation; – fear of the Police and the “pa sima”, the “concrete wall” or punishment block.

The key component of the fear mechanism is prisoner conviction that while in gaol, the “pa sima” is his lot in life, whenever a prison officer chooses to make it so. This is re-enforced continuously either by the reality of the punishment itself or frequent verbal threats or reminders of it. The realization moreover that escaping from prison is futile and does not offer relief must also help.

Convicts on the run in Samoa are not able to melt into anonymity in society as may be possible elsewhere, and find themselves in traditional communities that are not only incapable of accommodating them as anonymous individuals, but are uncomfortable or even unwilling nowadays to accommodate them at all. In these circumstances escapees inevitably find themselves quickly back in prison and into the ever waiting solid, sinister, dank and de-humanizing reality of the prison “pa sima”.

1.2 Governance Incarcerated persons lose their freedom of movement and have no choice but to endure inconvenience and hardship in prison. However, imprisonment does not mean they lose their right to live in a reasonable manner.

The principal governing legislation for prison life and inmate management is the Prisons Act 1967 (Prisons Act).

Other related legislation includes the Police Service Act 2009 (Police Service Act) and the Police Service Regulations 2010 (Police Service Regulations).

The Prisons Act empowers the Commissioner of Police and assigned subordinate officers to control the Prisons. That Act envisages Regulations to set out in greater detail how its objectives are to be achieved and to prescribe for the efficient and reasonable governance of the prisons within the provisions of the Prisons Act.

No regulations have ever been promulgated under the Prisons Act. As a result, unless the Prisons Act specifically provides otherwise, prison life in general and prisoner management in particular are in accordance with whatever the Assistant Commissioner and his subordinate officers consider appropriate.

To aid compliance with legitimate prison requirements the Commissioner is empowered under the Prisons Act to punish a prisoner in the “pa sima” for up to six days after a hearing for offences listed in the Prisons Act as minor prisoner’s offences. Punishment for periods longer than six days and up to thirty days may be given for offences listed as aggravated prisoner’s offences after a re-hearing by a District Court Judge. The Commissioner is required to advise the Minister forthwith of punishment given for prisoner’s offences.

Apart from a posted listing in prison of minor and aggravated prisoner’s offences there is no publication of any prescribed requirements or standards that prison officers and inmates living in prison must observe. Lack of policy or procedure guidance extends to punishment in the pa sima, which punishment is within normal everyday gaoler jurisdiction.

Laws and associated rules in any community guide people living under such laws in what they may or may not do. These things being reasonably clear in civilized society enable individuals to make decisions or organize their personal lives to the extend they are able to do as human beings within the parameters of permissible conduct.

Without prescri p t ions in Regulations as envisaged in the Prisons Act, the law for inmates in a Samoan prison, for all intents and purposes, is essentially the whim of the Assistant Commissioner or his subordinates to lesser extent.

Deviant behaviour is what they determine it to be when situations arise.

1.3 Treatment of Prisoners A prisoner is given little to guide him for life ahead when he enters prison. More often than not he learns what not to do from other prisoners. If he is given guidance at all from the prison authorities it is simple advice to obey police officers; not to try to escape; and to quietly serve out his sentence.

In these circumstances an inmate has no standards or markers to use as bearings and nothing to stand on as a matter of right. His life consists simply of doing what he is told, in the manner he is told, when he is told by anyone in authority. If he displeases those in authority in this regard he, under current practice, can be punished on the spot by confinement in the “pa sima” for up to a maximum of six days. In fact however, prisoners have been confined in the “pa sima” for periods much in excess of those envisaged by the Prisons Act.

There is no history of ‘hearings’ in connection with pa sima punishment, at which the prisoner to be punished is present, as envisaged by the Prisons Act. The duty under the Prisons Act to give a hearing falls on the Commissioner or more logically the Assistant Commissioner and his second in command to carry out.

There is no history of proper compliance with s31 (3) of the Prisons Act which says: “The Commissioner on imposing any such punishment shall enter and sign in a separate book, to be called the “Punishment Book” a statement of the nature of any offence for which the Commissioner has imposed a punishment, the name of the offender, the date of the offence, particulars of the punishment, and the date on which the Commissioner imposed the punishment”. Further, the Prisons Act requires that “a copy of every such entry shall be forthwith sent by the Commissioner to the Minister”. Likewise, there is no history of ‘rehearings’ by a District Court Judge in cases of “aggravated prisoner’s offences” and of reports “forthwith” to the Minister as required by the Prisons Act.

The lack of standards to guide conduct can impact on prisoners in different ways. For instance, we were told of a situation where joking and ribbing between a particular officer and certain young prisoners during work periods was the norm until one day the officer decided that this was no longer appropriate and broke an inmate’s jaw. The injured inmate in spite of being in need of medical attention was directly put in the pa sima Prisoners told the Commission of Inquiry that they are treated like slaves or “nonpersons” in prison with no rights to speak of. They endure the reality of a prison maxim drummed into them that whether right or wrong, an inmate gains nothing from questioning any decision or directive of a prison officer.

Prisoners claim to be subjected to indignities through requirements put in procedures to cause humiliation for the sake of humiliation.

Verbal abuse through foul language has its own twists too. Putting up with invectives and profanities in conversation is never pleasant.

The deliberate use however of disgusting expressions when addressing large groups or the assembled inmate population in the Samoan language is arrogant uncouthness in pointed denial of the intrinsic dignity of one and all.

The reason for the obviously thriving culture among the prison officers of treating inmates badly is clear from the evidence before the Commission. There exists very little structure within the prison system that directs prison officers on their conduct. Moreover the leadership is lacking effective overall control and as a result the officers are largely left to their own devices.

It is beneficial to consider the Stanford Prison experiment of 19711, which sought to emulate conditions for prisoners in an environment where the prison guards had little to no direction on how to treat their subjects, and the effects arising from this. The consequences were wide ranging and one of the more relevant findings was that without proper supervision or direction, the guards began to mistreat the prisoners, subjecting them to ritual humiliation and dehumanisation.

The author of the experiment, Phillip Zimbardo draws direct comparisons with the prison of Abu Ghraib in Iraq where guards working under little supervision subjected prisoners to sexual abuse and ritual humiliation. One observed behaviour repeated many times was that guards would film their abuse of the prisoners. The Commission notes that 1 Haney, C., Banks, C., & Zimbardo, P.G. (1973). Interpersonal dynamics in a simulated prison. Internati onal Journal of Criminology and Penology, 1, 69-97 the filming of prisoners in unflattering or demeaning circumstances for dissemination has been observed in Samoa, demonstrating it seems a linkage with the findings in the Stanford Prison experiment.

The unequivocal reason for guard behaviour in this manner was not because of the bad character of the guards employed. It was due to the lack of structure the guards operated under. The Stanford Prison experiment demonstrated that without a rigid structure of command and guard control most normal people would tend towards these behaviour traits.

Conviction of a crime in Samoa does not mean that one’s right to human dignity and freedom from ill-treatment is removed. There were worrying instances where inhumane treatment was evidenced to the Commission including the perception held of inmates by prison officers as having no rights except the right to receive a meal. Each and every one of us deserves the chance to rectify our mistakes and the conditions within Tafaigata prison for some prisoners may not be conducive to this.

In addition to a moral responsibility it makes little sense to dehumanise and mistreat prisoners. This merely serves to foster a section of society who have little self-worth and consequently contribute very little to the country. It has been well proven that prison systems which treat prisoners with respect and pay close attention to rehabilitation achieve far lower reoffending rates with ex-prisoners going on to make substantial contributions to society.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 10 provides that any person deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and dignity. As a signatory to the ICCPR Samoa should uphold these standards, yet is currently falling short.

Changes need to be made to facilitate detention environments where inmates serve their sentences without being subjected to inhumane treatment and degradation and are free to return and contribute to the development of Samoa. This can be achieved through prescription in Regulations that sets standards of behaviour for guards, gives direction on how to treat prisoners and provides for a rigid structure of management and responsibility.

The expectations we should have of our prison guards is only one side of the coin however, as there must also be defined expectations of our prisoners for a system to work effectively. Prisoners must know what to expect and have a clear understanding of how their behaviour will impact their treatment.

When obedience to prison officers is essentially the one and only operating rule in the Tafaigata prison, anything less than unquestioning compliance can and do result in serious punishment. The most frequent entry for pa sima punishment is “disobedience” with no further explanation whatsoever in the Punishment Book.

The price of compliance in these circumstances, not surprisingly, is suppressed resentment. It was made clear to the Commission of Inquiry that there is deep resentment among prisoners at Tafaigata.

In individual situations they resent inability to meaningfully question the reasonableness of directives and decisions of prison officers regarding them without risking punishment or victimization. In general they see inconsistency and favouritism in decisions concerning the high interest matters to all prisoners of weekend parole, visitor privileges and postings out of Tafaigata. Special treatment they see extended to individuals supports a general belief among inmates that a prisoner with money or other means by which he or she can benefit prison officers is able to have an easier life in prison than others.

The case was cited to us of a prisoner who was allowed to have a house in which he was able to receive visits from his wife and family, seemingly at any time he wanted. The Commission of Inquiry was led to believe that special treatment in the particular case was extended on medical grounds. The documentary evidence produced to us did not satisfactorily support this claim.

With regard to perceived inconsistent treatment in the grant of weekend parole, prison authorities explain that these benefits are extended to prisoners strictly at the discretion of the Commissioner or his proxies.

Appropriate factors have to be taken into account such as the monitored conduct of individual prisoners and degrees of risk associated with the different inmates.

Frequent escapees from prison cite resentment of the kind explained above as having a bearing on their decisions to break out. The rejection of requests to see a doctor was also put forward as a major factor.

These however are probably in large part rationalization of conduct that has become habitual for some young inmates.

These prisoners appear not to be deterred by fear of the pa sima and think nothing of walking out of prison when they feel the urge to do so.

A pair of young prisoners who were denied permission to go to the hospital did in fact break out in August 2013, proceeded to the hospital, bought medication supposedly prescribed for them and broke back into prison later in the day. They were punished for escaping.

Another prisoner walked out of prison also in August 2013 and broke into a house. He helped himself to clothes he fancied and returned to prison to resume prison routine as if nothing had happened. It was not until the clothes and gum boots he left behind at the burgled house were traced to him in prison that his “walk about” episode was discovered. He also ended up in the pa sima.

When due to frequent exposure and long experience of the pa sima prisoners are no longer constrained or affected by it and become insolent towards prison officers, exceptional measures which the system does not have are called for. In these situations exasperated prison officers have turned to physical violence probably more often than we would like to believe.

Additionally, the pa sima section which represents punishment for most prisoners has become permanent accommodation, but with normal rations, for the hard case inmates because of demonstrated high propensity for escaping. Strictly speaking, they cannot be said to be in “solitary” confinement continuously but they are in every other way cut off from the routine life and work of the prison community for months on end.

1.4 What of rehabilitation?

Rehabilitation in any meaningful sense is not a feature of the Samoan prison system. Not only is there no concerted effort to rehabilitate the incarcerated, there is no policy endeavour to properly use the considerable manpower cooped up in prison to utilize the potential in the also considerable land resource available to the prison system to support itself more fully. The objective of the system, pure and simple, has been to confine and to keep prisoners occupied at minimum effort and cost.

With confinement as its sole major objective, the prison system has been remarkably successful in spite of the dilapidated facilities at its disposal and the dismal resources it has had to contend with over the years. It is not officially admitted, but a lower entry threshold for Tafaigata staff recruits than for general policing has been in effect for some time now.

The direct involvement of the most senior prison officers in the pursuit of the limited objectives of Tafaigata prison seems minimal to us. Their engagement with prison management appears limited to the exercise of superior authority to deny or approve matters submitted upwards from time to time. Managerial or corporate strategies for the organization’s goals are nonexistent.

By all accounts, the initiative and energy of one person, who happens to head middle management, appears to be responsible for order and control in Tafaigata prison and for any progress in recent times that the prison may be able to claim.

We comment below on money earning activities or “projects” operated by inmates in Tafaigata. These were explained to us as measures to keep prisoners occupied and to help rehabilitate inmates for life after prison.

1.5 Conduct of Prison Officers Liberal recourse in the main prison to disciplinary powers available under the Prisons Act has been of central importance to the prison system’s ability to keep convicted persons contained away from the general population.

As noted earlier, there are no Regulations to govern the day to day exercise of these powers.

The procedures that have become practice facilitate ready backing for prison officer authority, and the capacity of individual officers to instigate dreaded pa sima punishment for any prisoner.

Human frailty and lack of prison regulations have allowed a significant culture of petty corruption and prisoner exploitation to flourish in the prisons. Furthermore, the attitude of those in authority that inmates have no rights during their incarceration has facilitated unreasonableness, elements of brutality and on occasion, callous disregard for the health and welfare of prisoners.

In the comparatively smaller women’s compound, prison officers have fallen into the habit of having “favourites” among prisoners. Informal alliances and groupings thereby emerge across the dividing line that interfere with the proper exercise of authority, undermine discipline and sour relationships in general within the small compound.

Prison officers when they choose can effectively appropriate for themselves food and money prisoners get from their aiga.

Money “borrowed” by officers from prisoners may or may not be re-paid depending on the disposition of the borrowers.

It often happens that a prison officer would casually ask an inmate particularly of a female inmate by female wardens for personal items such as cigarettes, soap or clothes. Even a can of paint has been the subject of a request of this kind. On such occasions, a prisoner who does not have cash borrows money or purchases from the canteen on credit. She knows better than to resist or question prison officer demands guised as friendly requests.

Freedom assumed by prison officers to help themselves to inmates’ possessions has extended, it seems, even to the taking of liberties with regard to inmate spouses and visiting female relatives.

It was reported to the Commission of Inquiry by a credible source that one particular officer habitually insists on kisses from visiting female relatives of inmates as part of the process of passage through the gate. Another officer exacts similar favours from female inmates who robotically comply to end his embarrassing pestering of them before assembled prisoners, while yet another likes to shock with indecent supposedly accidental exposures.

Behaviour explained to the Commission of Inquiry as well intentioned kindness by the Assistant Commissioner towards the de-facto spouse of an inmate was differently perceived by that inmate on claimed confessed revelations from the spouse in question. The inmate subsequently made loud and embarrassing efforts to draw out the Assistant Commissioner on the matter. A widely rumoured apology supposedly given in private was categorically denied by the Assistant Commissioner.

We believe the rumour to be an exaggeration of dialogue facilitated by the Assistant Commissioner to end the animosity that was being openly expressed towards him by the disgruntled male prisoner.

We describe below episodes brought to our attention that reflect the conduct of prison officers and their treatment of inmates:

1..5.1 Missions out of bounds Allegations of prison officers colluding with prisoners, for personal gain came before the commission of inquiry.

Prisoner Y serving time for ‘breaking and entry’, claimed that he escaped from prison in August 2013 because a prison officer had told him to find a way to get him a laptop for $300 tala. This prison officer, as confirmed by his own evidence, was usually friendly and interacted well with the prisoners.

About 4 days after the alleged conversation about the laptop, Prisoner Y asked the prison officer for some money and was allegedly given $50 tala. The officer when handing over the cash according to the prisoner enquired about progress with the laptop matter. The next day, while on plantation work, Prisoner Y escaped apparently to look for a laptop. He broke into a family home at Aleisa but did not find a computer.

The prisoner was later connected to the break-in through gum boots he had left behind and was taken to Faleata Police post. He told an officer there that he wanted to make a complaint to the PSU regarding his reasons for escaping

The implicated police officer denied the allegations against him in a statement to the PSU. The matter was pending at the time of the Inquiry but we learned later that the complaint was not successful due to insufficient evidence against the prison officer.

We shall never know the truth of this matter.

It is not impossible for Prisoner Y to have made up the whole thing. On the other hand, disbelieving him does not come altogether easily when the Commission is aware that a police officer, now dismissed, had actually organized young Olomanu inmates to regularly steal produce for the officer’s benefit from surrounding plantations. Another prison officer, an Inspector was at time of writing awaiting trial for the corrupt use of prisoners for personal benefit.

1..5.2 An unrepentant defiant inmate A Tafaigata prisoner implored counsel assisting when he recognized him in court one day for an opportunity to talk to the Commission about his experience in Tafaigata.

We sent for the prisoner and learned of his unusual circumstances. Prisoner X is currently in prison; and in there with him are his father and brother, all serving sentences for different unrelated convictions.

Prisoner X has been in and out of prison and seems destined to be a resident of Tafaigata for the long haul. We learned from him that the pa sima can be home in Tafaigata for an inmate for periods ranging from a few days to a whole year and more.

Prisoner X is a classic example of a hardened prison resident for whom continuous beating and confinement in the Tafaigata pa sima had done nothing. These measures had failed to reform him or curb his habitual deviant inclinations in any way. We surmise that as far as he is concerned the seemingly indefinite pa sima confinement he currently finds himself in presents him with only one option. That option is to escape when opportunity arises.

Instinctive determination to do this presumably can in time transform into the resignation of a broken spirit.

It is high time the Prison Service acquires in-depth knowledge of effective strategies and practices for the reform and rehabilitation of incarcerated individuals.

Prisoner X testified that he is continuously beaten by prison officers for various reasons including breaking out of prison. This treatment did not deter him from yet again breaking out of prison with four other boys in or about May 2013. Ironically, because of his history of escaping, Prisoner X had been living in the pa sima for over a year following a break-out in 2011, when he, once again, with the others took advantage of their daily hour in the exercise yard to escape. It was in connection with this escape that Prisoner X was in court the day he sighted our Counsel Assisting.

When asked why he broke out in 2011, he said that his son was sick. With regard to his May 2013 escape, he said that he wanted to get some things to help him serve his time. Each time he escaped, the police would capture him and beat him with apparently no consequential effect on his conduct or intentions. Being beaten up by police seemingly has become a facet of life which is endured when it comes from time to time.

A prison without rules and rigidly prescribed standards for wardens to observe is a dangerous place indeed for a person such as Prisoner X.

When questioned about the routine for prisoners in the pa sima, Prisoner X stated that there was none outside of the daily hour in the daylight for exercise and cleansing of body and toilet bucket in the yard. This routine of darkness, day in and day out for an indefinite period is all that the Samoan prison system with its inadequate physical facilities can offer an unreformed prisoner who becomes an habitual escapee.

Chillingly, this grim ‘end of the road’ type situation can be within easy reach of a certain type of young inmate if not properly helped and guided in a timely manner.

We understand from prison officials that young men who have become incorrigible house burglars are a tough problem for the authorities. Among convicted inmates the house burglars as a group pose the greatest threat to the hassle-free enjoyment of life and property within the community. Because of this nuisance factor they, more than any other group, are seen to be a priority focus for containment away from the general community.

A few “walks” out of gaol, which is easy to achieve, by any young man in this category can quickly put him on the slippery slope with accumulating time to serve and a record that recommends continuous lock-up in the atrocious but the only facilities available. The ‘end of the road’ self perpetuating cycle thus begins.

It is unfortunate for some young men who start down this path that their parents and families give up on them and do not visit them anymore. Eventually for some, the prison and prison community become the only family they relate to.

1..5.3 A joke not always a laughing matter Officer P and Prisoner Q routinely enjoy joking with one another. Officer P was apparently not in a joking mood however, when Prisoner Q made fun of him one day in front of other prisoners. He beat the prisoner up resulting in the loss of some of his teeth and being put in the pa sima.

The incident was witnessed by a number of inmates who gave evidence to the Commission as did both Prisoner Q and Officer P. The officer told the Commission that he was new at the time in 2010 and did not know any better. He did not admit to injuring Prisoner Q or to giving his mother money when he allegedly asked her to withdraw a complaint that had been lodged against him. The beating was later reported to the Commissioner who issued a warning to Officer P on the matter.

The same Officer P informed the Commission that he has martial arts training and a blue belt in taekwondo. He testified to an understanding that this experience was regarded as an important element of qualification and one of the reasons for his recruitment in 2010. When asked if his martial arts training is ever used in his line of work, he mumbled that “...e faaoga pe a faafiufiu pagota.” It is apparent from Officer P’s evidence that he does not understand that his so called “qualification” should not ever be used in his line of work or on prisoners.

Officer P was also accused by another prisoner of beating him in his bed for no reason. This was strongly refuted by officer P. He claimed to have only spoken to the prisoner who refused to follow his instructions and wanted to be put in the pa sima. He was adamant in his strange explanation that he merely told the prisoner to go to his cell but the prisoner insisted on being sent to the pa sima.

In the course of a submission to the Commission on another matter a prisoner claimed to have suffered a beating at the hands of prison officers. The prisoner explained that he was punched because he had not bathed when he was supposed to. He was banged against the wall of the cell next to the bathroom and severely injured his head. In spite of his injuries he was simply locked up after the beating. A woman prison officer later came with a first aid kit and attended to his injuries. He told the Commission that he was not taken to the hospital.

A current prisoner who is well known for breaking out of prison and has been living nearly half of his life in prison also told the Commission that he was beaten up and suffered a broken jaw for talking back to a prison officer and not obeying rules. The prison officer admitted hitting the prisoner and stated that he was totally out of line and became physical.

The Commission believes from the evidence of prisoners and prison officers alike that severe injuries as a result of beatings are not an uncommon sight or happening in prison. The Samoa Victims Support Group also testified to prisoners darting into their office to give them a glimpse of injuries when accompanying police escorts are not looking. The prisoners referred to here are apparently those en route to hospital to have injuries dressed some time after such injuries had been incurred.

1..5.4 Three months in pa sima for inconvenient rumours The longest confinement in the pa sima that the Commission is aware of for a female prisoner is 3 months. The prisoner involved, Prisoner F told the Commission that she had discovered the pregnancy of a fellow inmate and told police officers in the female compound. She was not believed at that time.

According to Prisoner F the pregnancy was later terminated and a bag containing the instruments used to terminate the pregnancy was in the female prison compound. Prisoner F reported the bag to the prison officer in charge. The bag was taken from the prisoners’ cell room and taken to the office where according to Prisoner F, it sat for weeks.

The bag was later sent to police headquarters in Apia for investigation.

It apparently did indeed contain the instruments used to procure the abortion.

Prisoner F made a statement about her knowledge of the matter. For this, she said she was put in the pa sima on the orders of the then Chief Gaoler for spreading supposedly, rumours and making up false stories. The then Chief Gaoler allegedly was rumoured to have fathered the aborted baby.

Prisoner Y stayed in the pa sima for 3 months. She told the Commission that she was very sick in the pa sima due to the long confinement and having to sleep on the cold floor without a mat and having only one meal a day.

The reported lock-up of Prisoner F is a glaring example of the use of the pa sima by prison officers to get at prisoners for personal reasons or to intimidate them into silence. Other prisoner witnesses confirmed to the Commission that Prisoner F was so sick during her confinement in the pa sima that on more than one occasion prison officers had to carry her out of the pa sima to be taken to the hospital.

A police sergeant when questioned about this incident confirmed the confinement and said that she told the then, chief Gaoler that the lock-up was not in accordance with the prison rules and that it was not right. She was ordered to just do what she was told.

The sergeant told the Commission that she regrets not doing anything at the time to push Prisoner F’s case and not lodging a written report on the matter.

1.5.5 A tragic Christmas On Christmas day 2012, shortly after 6.00 pm a thirty-eight year old man was brought to Tafaigata prison to be detained there. The man had been under a Mental Health Act 2007 ‘in-patient treatment order’ since 23 December 2012 and had been handed over to the Police because the hospital could not cope with excessively physical manifestations of agitation he had shown.

He was placed in one of four cells in pa sima cell block No. 2 shortly after arrival at Tafaigata prison. At that point he was seen to act strangely. He mumbled to himself continuously but otherwise he was not an active threat to anyone.

At about 8.45 p.m. he started to scream loudly and to shake the iron bars of his cell or punch the concrete walls from time to time.

Two other detainees, a convicted prisoner and a man held in custody charged with murder shared the small cell block with the detained mental patient. The cells that the two other detainees occupied were not locked and the two men were free to walk about in the common area into which all four cells in the block opened.

At about 9.00 p.m. two medical personnel arrived to administer medication. They were however unsuccessful in this task and the ill man was forcibly put back into his assigned cell. He received no further medical visits.

The cell block was checked throughout the night and early morning at irregular intervals ranging from 35 minutes to 2hrs 25 minutes.

Each visit was made by at least two of the three prison officers who made up the night watch at the male residential part of the prison.

This watch had been on duty since 8.00 a.m. Christmas morning and due to come off its 24 hour roster duty at 8.00 a.m. Boxing Day. It is clear that the mentally ill man had kept up his loud screaming and occasional swearing throughout the night. He shook the cell door’s iron bars from time to time and was frequently heard to call out “Lisa” his wife’s name to the deaf world around him. At about 7.15 a.m. on Boxing Day, Hans Dalton was dead. He was found head down in a large drum half full of water in the prison cell.

The event described above tells of the pitifully low level of performance that Tafaigata prison through habit has permanently set for itself to deliver. It reflects miserably also on the capacity of Samoa Police to be sensitive and responsive to the situation of an ill person in desperate need of relief from his mental anxieties.

Tafaigata is used to having only three or four officers as the full complement of the night watch in the prison office and male inmate compound. Such numbers provide capacity for nothing more than the manning of the office and rounds of the cell blocks by foot from time to time throughout the night. The low numbers is also a convenient excuse for not attending to any demands outside of the basic tasks that may arise during the night. Demands outside of the basic tasks include requests from inmates for medical attention.

Hans Dalton presented the Tafaigata night watch with a challenge that, had the prison wanted to handle in a minimally satisfactory manner, would have required additional manpower to provide, at the least, fuller surveillance throughout the night of the seriously agitated detainee. Such manpower was only a shout away for the asking. All of the Samoa Police force on Upolu not on regular duty that night was camped at Tafaigata in readiness for contingencies. The camp is routine Police procedure for the festive season holiday period.

Sadly however, the idea of doing anything out of the ordinary that night to help Hans Dalton does not appear to have entered the duty leader’s mind. To him the mentally ill detainee was a nuisance. In fact he was more concerned about the safety of the other two detainees in the cell block from Hans Dalton. The team leader and another colleague said so quite plainly in statements given to the Police Professional Standards Unit.

The watch was commanded by a Senior Constable. Why was command in the hands of such a low level officer? Why weren’t any of the senior ranks available to make decisions when the mental patient’s behaviour changed drastically later in the evening? The Superintendent who is 2nd in command of the prison resides in the compound. Why wasn’t his wisdom and experience brought to bear on the problem on the spot? In total perspective, what kind of a ‘ship’ was the Assistant Commissioner running at Tafaigata? How could the pitiful cries of an ill, for all intents and purposes, totally trapped human being yearning aloud desperately for the comfort of his wife and children, not be heard in the midst of assembled police manpower poised in readiness supposedly, to keep the community safe?

Police command showed no interest in these questions after the event. The investigation ordered by the Commissioner of Police focussed on shortcomings in the actions within the cell block of the lowest ranked prison officers involved. Disciplinary charges of negligent performance in not locking the individual cells were laid against the Senior Constable who was in charge and two duty constables.

The two constables quickly pleaded guilty to the charges even though it is clear that leaving the cells unlocked in this cell block had been common practice. The two constables were dismissed. The Senior Constable team leader while admitting in statements to the PSU that he had not locked Dalton’s cell and throwing himself at the mercy of the Commissioner, chose to defend the disciplinary charges against him. To date, one year later, these charges have yet to be heard by a police tribunal. No one else was held to account for the tragic events of Christmas and Boxing Day 2012 at Tafaigata Prison.

An observable manifestation of the creeping abandonment of prisons by the Ministry over the years is the absence of any verifiable active interest by police command in prisons performance. Where there is little expectation of quality performance or even of the mere possibility of it, little performance in fact emerges. Delegation is a vital factor to operational success in the Police. Over reliance on delegation appears to have been a downfall here.

1.5.6 Samoa Victims Support Group (SVSG) The Commission invited the Samoa Victim Support (SVSG) to make a submission as material before the Commission showed the SVSG to be a much used avenue by prisoners to raise complaints; and by others to draw attention to perceived situations of victimization. The Commission’s TOR required it to look at how prisoners’ complaints are handled.

The Commission is of the clear impression that prisoners are not inclined to seek redress for problems through the prison authorities.

They get the clear message from officers that prisoners have no rights in prison except the right to get some food. They see little prospect of their issues being taken seriously by the prison authorities.

It is not unusual for prisoners’ families to approach SVSG to inform them about problems that their sons or daughters face in Tafaigata. These approaches have been about ongoing beatings or suffering as a result of a severe beating. The President of SVSG told the Commission that police officers sometimes complain to them because the officers were not confident that the PSU would properly deal with the matters of concern. As a result SVG are landed with a lot of matters which were not part of their core functions. They have not turned the complainants away because they had nowhere else to go.

SVSG testified that they draw the attention of the police to the matters brought to them as complaints but they claim police show little interest in investigating them. The President of SVSG testified that she is instead accused of meddling and interfering in police business.

The President of SVSG told the Commission that family members of a prisoner at Tafaigata had approached SVSG after learning from media news that their son had been severely injured in prison from a beating.

The president immediately contacted the Assistant Commissioner (Prisons) because she was concerned and wanted to make sure that he knew of the incident to avoid anything worse developing. However, the Assistant Commissioner was not very happy with her calling. When questioned about this incident in evidence, the Assistant Commissioner stated that he did not like what he saw as the President of SVSG wanting to dictate how he was to do his work.

The Commissioner in his evidence testified that there was no hiding the fact that the Ministry did not have a good working relationship with SVSG who in his opinion was venturing outside its proper scope. He, like the Assistant Commissioner (Prisons) who had given evidence before him also felt that the President of SVSG was interfering and wanting to push where she was not welcome. He cited an occasion when the President of SVSG advocated for him not to proceed in a matter against a prospective defendant. He did not appreciate this encroachment into an area that was the prerogative of the Court and Police.

The SVSG claim that some serious matters raised through them have yet to be fully dealt with. They point to the case of the former prison officer whose baby supposedly, was unearthed from Aleisa. This however is a criminal case and is more strictly a concern for the police and not SVSG. It is nevertheless of concern to the public and to this Commission of Inquiry. We comment briefly elsewhere on implications this long drawn out matter has had on allegations and innuendos concerning Tafaigata prison management and individuals in it.

The SVSG point also to the “lotu tamaiti” lock-up which happened in October 2012 and about which the couple involved had made statements in complaint to the police Professional Standards Unit. They are still awaiting responses from PSU. The couple gave evidence to the Commission of Inquiry and we comment elsewhere in detail on their matter.

SVSG has come to be well known as a place for troubled people to go to for help. This Commission is of the view that this role should be maintained and not discouraged. Prisoners and prisoner families seem comfortable with SVSG and have found it useful in the past to go to them.

Prisoners need to be made fully aware by the prison authorities of section 22 (2) of the new Ombudsman Act 2013 which requires:

“a letter written and addressed to the Ombudsman by (a) a person in custody on a charge or after conviction of an offence; or (b) an inpatient under the Mental Health Act 2007, must be immediately forwarded, unopened, to the Ombudsman by the person-in-charge of the place or institution where the writer of the letter is detained or of which writer is an inpatient.

(3) A person, other than the Ombudsman, who opens a letter in contravention to subsection (2) commits an offence ...”

This function of the Ombudsman is another means for prisoners or concerned members of the public to make complaints.

1.6 Improper liaisons in prison Section 22 of the Prisons Act requires female inmates to be imprisoned “in such manner, as far as practicable as to prevent any female seeing, conversing or holding an interview with a male.” This is a far cry from the situation that exists in Tafaigata Prison today. There is plentiful opportunity for female inmates to meet or even fraternize with the opposite sex.

It was boldly stated to the Commission by several witnesses that one particular female police officer profits from facilitating connection between inmates desirous of meeting up with prospective friends of the opposite sex.

A number of stories alleging improper relationships between inmates and prison officers have been in circulation for some time.

These stories appear to have emanated from the female section of Tafaigata and through both inmates and prison officers have spread far and wide; even into the print media. As details or sordid insinuations in some of the alleged incidents are already in the public arena it seems appropriate that we explain what we found or did not find regarding these matters in our inquiry.

One particularly lurid story involves the Assistant Commissioner. This story had come to the attention of the Commissioner of Police who directed investigation by the Professional Standards Unit (PSU) of Police. From the perspective of indictable wrong doing the PSU concluded that there was nothing with which to further proceed. From the perspective however of possible questionable personal conduct, the findings of one PSU investigator did indicate sufficient reason for further examination whether or not disciplinary charges against the Assistant Commissioner could be justified. This further step was not taken by PSU.

Our own enquiries tell us that at the very least, what could have been looked at was failure on the part of the Assistant Commissioner to exercise good judgement in allowing himself to be alone, if in fact he was alone, with a female inmate in circumstances with high potential of impacting adversely upon the reputation of the Police and Prisons Service. The female inmate was required to fofo (treat by massage) the Assistant Commissioner’s legs for a skin disorder. The Assistant Commissioner’s wife had picked up the female inmate from prison and brought her home on the occasions of the fofo treatment.

We have the sworn evidence of both the Assistant Commissioner and his wife that the Assistant Commissioner was never alone with the female inmate in question. We learned on the other hand that the PSU in their investigations had discovered a witness at the spot to dispute the evidence of the Assistant Commissioner and his wife for one visit occasion. This witness is a prisoner with no apparent reason to lie.

In contrast the fofo practitioner inmate who subsequently told what allegedly happened in one particular session to anyone who would listen had been described by the Chief Justice in trial as someone hard to believe. It turns out also that an alleged intimate condition this witness categorically claims to have diagnosed of the Assistant Commissioner during the last and allegedly more extensive fofo encounter was not confirmed by hospital records. In all of the circumstances the lurid aspects of her story are very suspect.

It would appear that physical contact with female inmates is a matter of little consequence to the mind of the Assistant Commissioner.

The women’s compound Occurrence Book records the Assistant Commissioner visiting in September 2011 for a head fofo. To be fair to the Assistant Commissioner, there is nothing to suggest that he saw the woman prisoner in question as anything but a “taulasea” with curative talents or capabilities.

Homosexual activity at Tafaigata prison featured prominently in the “ghost letter”. The indulgence of individuals in homosexual activity is we think no fabrication but cannot be said to be unusually extensive.

It does not appear to be an issue at all in the male sector of the prison. With regard to heterosexual liaisons, the Commission was made aware of information allegedly implicating, a former prison chief in a liaison with an inmate who became pregnant and went through an abortion during her time in gaol. The prisoner concerned was convicted for her part in events along with a fellow inmate for procuring the abortion. Nothing of the kind eventuated with regard to the alleged involvement of the former prison boss in the affair.

The Commission was made aware of another pregnancy with an insinuated connection to the current Assistant Commissioner. The aborted baby in this case had been unearthed at Aleisa on or about August 2011 some months after it had been buried. The supposed mother, a prison officer at the time of the discoveries was alleged in “ghost letter” dispatches to have been then in an affair with the Assistant Commissioner.

For some reason the outcome of the police investigation of possible charges against the woman in connection with the discovery of the baby’s remains have yet to be formally concluded following forensic and DNA analysis in New Zealand of specimen evidence.

The Commission was told that the DNA results did not provide the clear linkage sought by Police in their enquiries. It is puzzling that the police are taking so long to use the DNA results to clear matters up with regard to the individuals so far implicated by rumour.

The long delay has served to fan speculation and innuendo surrounding the rumoured affair between the Assistant Commissioner and the woman concerned. The insinuated paternity linkage seems farfetched however unless the alleged affair had commenced months before the woman in question was ever recruited into Tafaigata service.

The rumoured affair itself on the other hand was made more credible in interested minds by another quite separate development. The female officer involved was suspended on pay pending the outcome of criminal charges against her from an unrelated complaint. It transpired that after the Court had disposed of the matter the woman continued to be paid for about a year and 4 months before her employment with police was quietly terminated, supposedly because the ghost letter had drawn public attention to the matter.

The sequence of events was perceived as favoured treatment because of the affair between the woman and the Police Commissioner’s friend. The Commissioner attributes it to oversight.

The Commission can point with some certainty to only one sexual relationship mentioned in “ghost letter” dispatches. This was an affair between a female prison officer and a male inmate. The police officer happens to be the same officer alleged to have been active in facilitating link-ups between inmates.

All other relationships were advanced on mere suspicion or hearsay.

1.7 Prison Activities and Projects The “projects” programme was explained to the Commission during the course of the Inquiry by prison officers and prisoners. We understand the programme to consist of cooperative type activities nurtured by the efforts of a senior sergeant who is obviously the “go to” person at Tafaigata for prisoners and prison officers. We understand that the senior sergeant personally supplied the commencing seed money for some of the small projects.

In other cases the mentioned senior sergeant was approached by prisoners who had various skills, talents and resources for potential projects.

The Commission gathers from evidence given that the projects programme is very successful and engages the inmate population in a positive and sustained manner. A vibrant cash economy ticks away in the prison. It is taxed in a loose voluntary manner to fund communal objectives within the prison. We note that these funds have even financed such things as quality hand cuffs and tyres for the prison truck which ought to have been purchased by the State.

Small projects for the women prisoners include handicrafts of all sorts such as fans, leis, and bags. Elei making is an activity that is undertaken by both female and a few male prisoners. Faleaiga involves both male and female prisoners in cooking light food items and meals which they sell to the prison population. Money received belongs to the prisoners to keep their business ventures going and to accumulate funds for themselves. All projects however, are required by the Assistant Commissioner to provide a “turn in” to the Office.

Projects operated by male prisoners only are the fish nursery for tilapia, vegetable garden, pig sty, a poultry farm, a carpentry house, a mechanic shop and an IT group. Most of these projects were the initiative of the prisoners with the help of the earlier mentioned senior sergeant.

Prisoners explained to the Commission that for some of these projects they actually made funding submissions to different organisations such as JICA. High revenue earning projects are the vegetable garden and the carpentry project where inmates build and sell coffee tables, different sized beds, chairs, tables, vanities and other items.

The turn in is any amount that the prisoners agree to give to the Assistant Commissioner.

The Assistant Commissioner issues receipts for money turned in and keeps it in a vault in his office. The money is not regularly banked but accumulates in the vault until such time that the Assistant Commissioner produces a Financial Statement of sorts and banks accumulated loose funds.

This money and the Assistant Commissioner’s terrible record keeping were the subjects of a lot of questions from the Commission. By the end of the Inquiry we were still not able to get a complete picture of monies received and spent.

This we think is due as much to the Assistant Commissioner’s amateurish record keeping as anything else including the fact that funds accumulated from past years are not clear and books of record was an innovation that only started less than two years ago.

Greater accounting expertise than what the Commission possesses would no doubt fare better in understanding a situation of which we weren’t able to make neither head nor tail.

For sure however, there is urgent need for these monies to be precisely recorded in a non- Mickey Mouse-type system of accounting that is approved by Treasury and regularly audited by the audit authorities.

1.7.1 The bigger “development” projects

The prisons establishment raises pigs and chickens and grows vegetable and taros. We understand that there are cattle also somewhere. We didn’t see any of these projects at Tafaigata but we assumed that they would be playing a part in feeding the prison population.

We were surprised then to hear disappointed prisoners complain that they had been required over time to bring live chickens from their aiga following weekend parole to kick start the prison chicken project. They have yet however, to eat one bite of chicken from the prison chicken project.

Prisoners don’t get to eat vegetables from the vegetable garden either it would seem. We were told that there have been times when prisoners have had to eat low grade ta’amu that was only fit for pigs because the prison had no taro or banana supplies. It was during one of these periods that prisoners boarded a bus to call on the Prime Minister. It was apparently a “come as you are” event because the prisoners had come in their work gear, machetes and all, straight after a work session on the prison plantation. They were stopped in their tracks three minutes from town, at Pesega by police shooting the bus tyres.

We find it difficult to understand how the prison at Tafaigata with a huge acreage of land and the manpower at its disposal could be unable to supply its own staples. In contrast to this was the extremely impressive sight we witnessed at Olomanu prison of acres upon acres of planted taro, the result of the work of about twenty-five young men under obviously very capable police leadership.

It seems that unlike Olomanu, prisoners at Tafaigata don’t always get to eat the fruit of their labours. This is with regards to chickens, green vegetables and perhaps even taro if one is to believe the evidence of the disappointed prisoners who appeared before us.

Some of these prisoners advanced the view that they were being used by the system in being asked to provide things for projects but that project production was not used for them.

A prisoner complained that he had voluntarily provided significant funds to start the commercial vegetable garden. He made a success of the project but was taken off it suddenly by the Assistant Commissioner without consideration given to the considerable amount of money he had provided.

Another disappointed prisoner told the Commission almost on the last day of its hearings about a list of valued tools he had provided in 2007 for use in the auto mechanic shop at the request of the last Chief Gaoler.

He has been following up the matter with the senior prison officers but no one seems to know where the tools have disappeared.

Another prisoner told the Commission that he was allowed to bring a vehicle he owned to be used in the mechanic project for teaching and demonstration. Once the car arrived at Tafaigata the Assistant Commissioner took it to his house. The prisoner claimed that he never saw the car again until the Assistant Commissioner was put on his current suspension sometime in August 2013.

1.7.2 Religious Missions Programmes No criteria exist to guide the selection of religious and other programmes that the prison allows for prisoners at Tafaigta and Vaiaata prisons.

The Officers in charge of the prisons said that they accept all religious groups who wish to conduct programmes on the assumption that they would be good for the prisoner’s spiritual life.

The relevance of the programmes being offered at Tafaigata is a matter that was raised in the “ghost letter” with particular reference to the Fortress of Faith religious group and the prominence of its involvement in the Tafaigata work week.

This group runs a weekly counselling session from Monday to Thursday at Tafaigata. It has however generated a great deal of criticism and some resentment among prisoners. Prisoners testified that the mission group “counsellors” grill them on why they are in jail and on the details of their convictions. They express opinions and explanations on the causes of the predicaments prisoners find themselves in.

Such causes, prisoners were told, were broken homes, not going to church or going to the wrong church and others. Churches to which some prisoners belong were allegedly referred to by the counsellors as belonging to satan.

Some prisoners expressed the view that the weeklong counselling is used by male and female prisoners to hook up, start relationships or as meeting opportunities.

The Commission happened upon this mission group when it visited the Vaiaata prison in October 2013. When the Commission arrived at Vaiaata, the mission group had just arrived and had started their programme. The prison officers in charge of Vaiaata informed the Commission that the visit was impromptu.

It had been requested by Fortress of Faith to facilitate the wish of another religious group to evangelize and to give gifts of soap and other items for the prisoners. The programme that was in progress in the main inmate house was a service with praying, singing, testimonies and ended with evangelical dances.

The Commission took no notice of the proceedings until following its discussions with the police officers it proceeded to inspect the facilities. It was concerned at that point to see the dance item that was in progress.

The performers in colourful flowing gowns were young girls who looked to be between the ages of 16-18 dancing undeniably with grace, but also with compelling unintended sensuousness, in front of about 30 male prisoners. Common sense alone should have prescribed against the participation of such young girls in such a way, or at all, as part of a ministering group to incarcerated men in a prison without containing walls. Inadvertence of this kind conceivably can have unfortunate repercussions for neighbouring populations.

The Assistant Commissioner (Prisons) stated in his evidence that he allowed Fortress of Faith to carry out their work in prison because he saw value in the “counselling nature” of their programme.

The Commission can understand the Assistant Commissioner’s point but it is far from convinced that the usefulness of the counselling activities being carried out in Tafaigata has been properly assessed by competent authority or desired by the prisoners. The Commission did not detect any real enthusiasm among prisoners towards the programme. Those who attend are selected by prison management and simply told to go.

1.8 Physical Facilities and Staffing The neglect of the prisons over the years clearly shows in the dilapidated condition of the prison facilities and the inadequacy of its staffing in terms both of quantity and quality.

On many nights the entire male prison is in the hands of a senior constable and two other constables who would all be completing the tail end of a twenty-four hour shift.

The custody area in the men’s prison at Tafaigata is a very disturbing feature of the prison. The Commission took depressing note of this on a visit to Tafaigata in the first week of its hearings. On our arrival, inmates were clustered around, with some clutching at the bars, of the only large opening into the first custody cell to come into view. The clustering and jostling obviously had to do with the barred entry way being the coolest spot in a cell chamber that was holding about thirty men at that time. We mean no disrespect but from a little distance, the inhabitants of Cell No. 1 appeared to the casual onlooker sadly, little different from animals in a zoo.

There are three custody cells in the male prison at Tafaigata and one in the female compound.

For the male prisons, the three custody cells are of the same size; about 20 feet wide and 50 feet deep. Fresh air comes in only through the bars of the entry area into the cell and four small barred openings in the wall; two above the entry and two high up on the back wall. Each cell has a 44 gallon drum holding water for bathing and for the toilet that is incorporated into the back end of the chamber.

More than 20 prisoners are usually held in one of these cell chambers but the number can go up to the thirties. The maximum number of prisoners that should be held in a custody cell is 15.

Custody numbers increase dramatically in the period leading up to Christmas as a lot of people are held in custody for drunkenness and driving offences.

Prisoner E gave evidence to the Commission that the custody cells when he first entered it was the most degrading place ever. He said that ventilation was grossly inadequate as there were not enough windows. The sweating bodies of about 30 men inside coupled with the stench of the en-suite toilet did not help. He said that his experience in the custody cell was one that even he would not wish on his worst enemy.

A very sad aspect according to Prisoner E is the manner in which custodies are fed. He told the Commission that during meal times, the custodies are treated like animals. Their meals are brought in a bucket which is about 20 litres. The bucket is then taken to the corner of the room and the custodies eat out of recycled plastic ice cream containers; the same ice cream containers they eat their soup from and drink their tea in.

A number of prisoners testified that the custody cells are much worse than the cell rooms they are placed in once they are convicted. They said that not only are custody cells always overcrowded, they are unhygienic and rat-infested. They told the Commission that rats run around freely, sometimes even over sleeping men.

The custodies have no schedule of any kind.

A person brought to Tafaigata to be held in custody is locked in one of the three custody cells and not allowed to come out unless he has visitors. The rest of the time, he is packed with others in the cell chamber to await trial.

One individual, at the time of our visit had been held in custody in the miserable conditions we describe above for over a year.

The Commission wanted to know why conditions were so bad and tried to get answers from the prison officers. It became apparent that it was a non-issue to the prisons and a non-issue to general policing. Prison officers said that custody cells were a matter for the general police as the custodies are under the jurisdiction of general policing. All prison officers do, they claim, is to make sure that they are put away in the custody cells at Tafaigata.

An inspector from the general police in his evidence to the Commission stated that the handover of custodies on arrival at Tafaigata is the end of their part. It appears that the two groups within police are concerned about passing the buck to and fro for the handling of custodies and not concerned at all about the conditions in which custodies are held.

These attitudes play to ridiculous ends in situations such as the escape of the Assistant Commissioner’s son while in custody. The Commission was told that, a son of the Assistant Commissioner (Prisons) was brought to Tafaigata as a prisoner by police escort to be held in custody. While at Tafaigata, the lad apparently got away from the escort and ran off from the prison grounds. The question that apparently then arose was; who should look for him?

The question obviously weighed so heavily on all concerned that it took about a year for the escapee to be re-apprehended. When we questioned Tafaigata police on how it was possible for a prisoner to just run away from so many police in broad daylight, they said that the prisoner was still under the responsibility of the general police. This response would seem to confirm the notion that in these matters, concentration of police is not on the problem but on whose problem it should be.

Prior to 2010, all police officers, including the prison officers were recruited in one recruiting process and allocated to various duties within police. Since 2010 Tafaigata has been recruiting officers specifically for work at the prison. In response to television advertisements people apply specifically to be prison officers. There is no denying that there has been a lowering of standards.

The evidence shows that a number of mature prison officers recruited between 2010 and 2012 were unemployed before they became police officers. A number of recruits were former security guards with junior secondary school level education.

All 56 staff at Tafaigata were called to give evidence before the Commission. It was evident that there neither was proper training of new staff at Tafaigata nor continuous training of any kind for those who have been with the prison for some time.

Officers recall having received training when they were first recruited but there were huge inconsistencies in their responses. For example when asked about the duration of training, some officers testified that it took about 3 weeks and some testified that it took about 3 months, when in fact these officers would have been trained together as they were recruited together.

There is no curriculum or specific set of topics to be covered in training. The Assistant Commissioner (Prisons) and his second in command have been providing training based on their own knowledge, experience and what they think would be helpful for new recruits.

Training not based on a fixed curriculum or proper scheduling can obviously lead to inconsistencies. The Commission was made aware of the case of two new prison officer recruits who took videos of prisoners playacting in crude if not obscene fashion.

They disseminated the video filming to others through cell phone sharing. The two officers were subsequently charged. They received warnings from the Commissioner and had their probation period extended.

When asked why the newly recruited officers were not dismissed as they were still on probation, the Commissioner explained that he had checked with Tafaigata and found that the officers’ training had not included the important basic “taboo” not to take photographs of prisoners.

1.8.1 Families living in prison compound

A perhaps unusual if not unique feature of Tafaigata as a large prison is the fact that a number of prison officers and their families live in the compound, opposite and close to the prisoners’ accommodation area. Their children are free to roam around and even mingle with the prisoners at times but they are not allowed in the area where prisoners are quartered and locked up at night.

It was reported to the Commission that a prison officer’s son, who lives in the compound, comes to the men’s prison at night to sell marijuana through the bars. The prisoner who reported this stated that the prison officers were not aware of this, as the boy comes around when the prison officers are not around at night and only to the part of the cell area that cannot be seen from the office.

A senior sergeant confirmed to the Commission that grown up children of prison officers have been disorderly in the compound in the past. Some go out drinking and come back rowdy. He gives these young people no quarter and has them thrown into the pa sima for the night when they play up.

In the totality of things important benefits are derived from staff living on the compound.

It does however increase opportunity and inclination to exploit prisoners or to take the prisoners’ food after family visits on Sunday. A reliable witness testified to the Commission that she saw a whole pig on one such Sunday carried off to a prison officer’s house presumably to be later shared to resident colleagues.

The consumption of alcohol in the prison compound is absolutely forbidden, yet allegations of habitual drinking in the compound kept surfacing in statements made to the Commission. All of these allegations except in one case were vehemently denied by prison officers.

The Commission learned of drinking sessions and drunkenness at Olomanu during a period in September 2010 in full view of the prisoners.

The officers involved were permanent Tafaigata officers assigned temporarily to Olomanu during the absence on overseas leave of the Olomanu officer in charge. This would suggest that among Tafaigata based staff, drinking within prison precincts is not abnormal behaviour.

The 2nd in command when asked admitted to having no more than four bottles daily in his home in the compound. He claimed that the Commissioner had given him special permission to do so. The Commissioner of Police denied ever giving such permission. The Assistant Commissioner (Prisons) when asked about his 2nd in command’s four bottle routine told the Commission that he was not aware of such a thing.

Prison officers who live in the compound do not pay any electricity or water as this is included in the prison’s budget. They have their own plantings behind their houses. Presumably these were meant to be small in scale around the dwellings when these things were originally permitted. The size of one personal maumaga that now fronts on to the main road at Tafaigata and runs alongside the long drive into the prison office is enormous.

The disregard by prison staff of ordinary decencies and restraints with regard to prisoner food from aiga, the non-observance of strict rules against drinking and the creeping abuse of concessions allowed them as in personal crop plantings on prison land, illustrate the shocking state of professional conduct prevailing in Tafaigata and the inability of prison leadership to impose appropriate standards.

1.9 The ‘Nu’u’ in the Tafaigata Prison - A report within a report An integrated community known as the “Nu’u” (village) functions within the confines of each of the three prisons.

The entity and community known as the “Nuu” in Tafaigata is a physical and social reality that co-exists with the formal prison institution itself. It embraces all persons who have legitimate presence within the confines of Tafaigata be they officials or inmates. All of these people recognize and subscribe to the legitimate aims and goals of the Nuu.

They recognize also obligation upon them to uphold and advance these aims. It is taken for granted however that the Nuu and what it stands for would never be in contradiction to or counterproductive of the prison institution itself whose official objectives, authority, powers and hierarchies are ever paramount.

The Nuu functions for itself to derive value in its own way for its adherents. In doing so it serves at the same time both the short and long term interests of the official prison institution.

In interesting respects the Nuu does things in much the same way as traditional Samoan village communities. It accumulates its own collective wealth under the watchful eye of established leadership. For Tafaigata, the Nuu funds are generated by the activities of inmates as explained elsewhere in this report. Custody of these funds is entrusted to the chief gaoler who accounts for them in his own way. These funds are kept separate from official funds and are not submitted for audit by the Government Audit Office.

The Nuu has embarked on projects of its own, the most notable of which has been the construction of a new chapel. Here again the Nuu proceeded as if it was a real nuu or traditional village in spite of it being located on government land and within a state prison. It put up $60,000 of its own accumulated funds and negotiated with builders to construct the building. Government or government tendering processes were not asked to be involved.

Government was however later asked to help with funds when its own funds ran out.

This also is not unlike traditional community behavior.

Very importantly, the functional reality of the “nuu” dissipates any tendency for potentially destructive “us versus them” mentality to emerge and develop in Samoan prisons.

A special study by the Commission of Inquiry of the ‘nu’u’ operating in Tafaigata Prison is attached as a report within this report; Appendix A.

1.10 Future Prisons– Change for the better or for the sake of change?

It is obvious that the Prisons System has been a badly neglected part of the Ministry of Police and Prisons. Dilapidated prison facilities, atrociously poor staffing, lack of specialized staff training and lack of forward looking planning show that the prisons have been treated as a low priority nuisance annex of Samoa Police.

The prisons budget resources and staffing have never been properly viewed and planned as they should have been done from a comprehensive perspective embracing both detention and rehabilitation objectives. It is no wonder that plans have been recently put in place for the separation of a Prisons Service from the Police, the assumption presumably being that only separation will get done what was not done in the past. A simple fact however is that these things were not done because there was no will to do them in the past.

It cannot be denied that with all its faults and in spite of atrociously poor resourcing and neglect the prisons division of Police have been remarkably successful in the only objective set for them to achieve; which has been to incarcerate convicted persons. They certainly must no longer be allowed to continue having this as their only mission, and conceivably it can simply be a matter of empowering them to envisage other roles and objectives and of giving them the proper means to pursue such targets.

There has always been cooperation as a matter of necessity and common sense between village authorities and the police in law enforcement and escaped prisoner apprehension. We alluded earlier to the positive impact of this and the part it plays in the overall non-visible mechanism of control within Samoa’s prison system, a system that has minimal reliance on the containing walls and the multiplicity of cells one finds in prisons everywhere else.

This cooperation has been further fostered and developed of late through Law and Justice Sector activities in rural interaction and community policing. We sense that it is with Police that the rural authorities are willing to work and cooperate. We wonder whether a complete break of Prisons Services away from Police would not take Prison Services out of the loop, such that it would no longer benefit from the strengthening links between official law enforcement and the village communities.

We suspect that the population would not perceive a separated prison service with the same respect nor would it identify as easily with its work as the population currently does with the police. This could result in slowly disappearing community support and cooperation with the detention institutions.

Such an adverse consequence would be highly undesirable. We urge careful consideration be given to proposals to separate Prison Services from Police.

CHAPTER 2: GENERAL POLICING 2.1 Overview

The considerable aid resources devoted in recent years to general policing have visibly transformed the police force. The basic facilities and equipment of yesteryear have been quickly abandoned and replaced.

In important specialist areas also such as in forensics, state of the art equipment has made Samoa the envy of regional police forces.

The Samoa Police Force of today by these obvious features and the visibly large number of commissioned officers in its ranks give an impression of comfortable adequacy consistent with its now habitual practice of contributing to international peace keeping.

How the noticeably expanded and modernized police force fits into the actual maintenance of law and order in Samoa is however not readily apparent. Law and order in Samoa has and still is the result of the combined work of the formal police and the practical effectiveness of Alii and Faipule traditional control in the villages.

As far as we can gather almost total reliance continues to be placed on the village authorities for law and order in the major part of the country, the rural areas. The urban area falls more directly upon the police to control.

Certainly the urban population has greatly expanded in recent years and presumably this is justification for the expansion and modernization we have seen in the police.

The Samoa Police Force now comprise of the Commissioner, 5 Assistant Commissioners, 3 former high ranking officers serving as consultants, 16 Superintendents, 4 Civilian managers 18 Inspectors, 31 Senior Sergeants, ? 54 Sergeants, 47 Corporals, 423 Constables and 35 Civilians.

The issue of central interest is whether there is any substance to the very impressive visible transformation of the Samoa Police Force and whether the institutional strengthening it has undergone is reflected in police performance.

There are questions that ought legitimately to be explored but it was not possible for this Commission of Inquiry to do so. Many pertinent questions ought to be asked; what additional policing is being delivered by the newly created police capability and does the Police Force exist for policing in Samoa or are secondary focuses encroaching upon the raison d-être for Samoa Police?

It was said to us that some police officers have enthusiasm for little beyond the opportunity for overseas missions to come up. What real benefits accrue to Samoa from sending police contingents overseas? Is exposure of Samoan police personnel to trouble spots policing proving to be professionally enhancing or personally enriching? Common perception after all is that in trouble spots, security concerns are of necessity foremost.

Accountability and normal notions of due care in the personal actions of emergency forces personnel tend by exigency to be relegated to irrelevance. Do we want Samoan police officers exposed to such situations and to circumstances in which armaments play prominent roles?

Publicity of passing out ceremonies for intakes of new recruits and of promotions parades feature regularly in local news. There is little public understanding however of additional police service delivery from it all.

There are puzzling anomalies. The Commission notes for instance that an officer serving temporarily as a secretary to a Superintendent was of sergeant rank, while the entire Tafaigata male detention facility can be left to the charge of a senior constable.

The Commission notes also that while as part of the modernization exercise performance assessment mechanisms were put in place in 2010 they have not been implemented.

There has been whole scale resistance to this from within police but we were told by the Commissioner that a clear order has now gone out to implement these measures.

The police in upholding and enforcing the law strive to keep the community safe and secure. This is an immense responsibility which falls directly on the Commissioner of Police. There have been situations in recent months and years when the police have had to act decisively under pressing circumstances.

The Commissioner clearly has not shirked his duty to make the difficult decisions. It is not our task here to analyse or assess the exercise of his best judgment on these occasions. It is noteworthy that the Commissioner for the most part had found it necessary, or perhaps simply chose, to personally execute the necessary measures.

It is in the broad front of mundane situations that the citizen comes face to face with the police and from whence criticism of the police comes. There is certainly basis for public concern about the exercise of police powers.

It is well accepted that the police must be vested with adequate power to deal with exigencies that arise in the line of duty. It is also in the nature of the job that these powers have to be exercisable by even the lowliest sworn policeman. Indications are that within the rank and file of police there is either inadequate appreciation of police duty to be accountable in the exercise of power, or little inclination to so act. The Commission of Inquiry has the clear impression from evidence presented that prevailing police attitude in these matters fall well short of what would be appropriate.

Lack of concern about the adverse consequences of police action or inaction upon members of the public can be seen in the casual attitude of police to the safe keeping of private property taken into police custody. Evidence show that it is not beyond police officers to lay improper charges against individuals to divert legitimate attention from themselves or from favoured acquaintances. The Commission received further insight into this problem from the Office of the Ombudsman.

Police indifference extends even to negative impact of police action and inaction upon the state. The award against Government in excess of $1/4 million in 2011 for police failures and mistreatment of an individual held in custody awaiting deportation is a case in point.

In fairness to Police it should be noted that the detainee in that case was thrust upon them in a manner similar to the mentally troubled man who died in prison on the early morning of Boxing Day 2012. Both men fell outside the normal categories of detainees regularly held by Police and Prisons. Neither man was being held under criminal statute and should not have been subjected to detention conditions regularly encountered by those who are so held.

This is not to say that the said conditions are suitable for these latter or anybody else nor can anything excuse callousness and dishonesty displayed by police for the world to see.

There must be many good and capable officers in the Police Force. The nature of substandard performance revealed in studied cases however, reflect badly on the overall quality of police personnel. We certainly cannot assert with any element of confidence that basic honesty and truthfulness are strong points of Samoa Police. We learned during our inquiry that out of forty candidates from our Police who were tested by outsiders for overseas mission duty, only ten passed. This did not help our state of confidence in the quality of police personnel.

The crucial and most urgent need for police is to lift the calibre and integrity level of personnel above its present low level. This has implications for training as well as recruiting policies and practice.

A concomitant requirement is to address elements in police culture that protect substandard performance and conduct.

This is reflected in PSU early reluctance to diligently investigate complaints other than those brought by the higher levels of police itself. Most noticeably, is neglect of complaints lodged by members of the public with PSU. Clear determined leadership in a campaign against these ills must come from the top and pushed energetically through the PSU. In this connection it is essential for PSU to be strengthened and housed in premises that engender respect. At the moment they share an old half blown away building with the Samoa Victims Support Groups (SVSG).

It is vital for police morale that there is no perception of preferred or differential treatment of individual officers. This cannot be said to be the situation at the present time. The free recruitment in the past of the descendents of senior personnel and the inevitable rising of these people in police ranks naturally generate suspicions which exacerbate the situation. In addition, cases such as the few that were brought to our attention and studied in this report have not helped matters either.

2.2 Submissions and Complaints to COI Submissions to the Commission of Inquiry about general policing fell into two categories:

(a) Concerns expressed from within the ranks of police and terminated officers about perceived nepotism, differential treatment and the impact these and associated problems are having on professionalism, staff morale and the efficient functioning of the police as a cohesive force; and (b) Public concern about abuse, misuse and perceived lack of accountability for the use of police power within the ranks of police.

A complaint given to us against the management of the maritime wing of Police was found not to have substance.

2.3 Allegations of Nepotism and differential Treatment It may not always be expressed as policy but organizations, more often than not, guard against employing too many people of close kin. Some organizations apply very strict restrictions. In the Samoa Public Service for example, section 39 of the Public Service Regulation 2008 makes reference to the employment of near relatives in Ministries. It states that an employee who has a near relative working in the same Ministry must immediately notify the Public Service Commission whose duty it is to consider whether it would be in the interests of the Public Service to take action on such notification.

People of course have a right to follow in the footsteps of their forebears. This is applauded without question in any occupation particularly where individuals have to be successful in stringent entry requirements or lengthy study in order to do so. This cannot be said of entry into the police. A sense of calling, dedication, personal integrity and good character are desirable attributes in police recruits. They are just as important also in recruits into other occupations.

It appears to the casual eye that Samoa Police after many years of unrestrained openness to the employment of close kin now looks like a fraternity of older generation personnel facilitating the employment and advancement of descendents in the force. We were told in evidence that the degree of kin and in-law connection in the police force is today quite extensive. In such circumstances loyalties along kin lines tend naturally to emerge.

It was reported to us that kin based groupings or alliances, real or imagined cause officers to be so guarded and cautious around one another that an unhealthy restraint pervades in the force. This must have a negative effect on the free flow of information and on the level of general basic trust of one another that members of the force ought to be able to take for granted for maximum functional efficiency.

Greater potential arises in these circumstances for allegations of nepotism and favouritism to emerge. Negative perceptions of this kind, criticism and suspicions directed at the Commissioner in particular, are heightened by the fact that in the disciplined force that is the Police, the Commissioner is vested with extensive authority and discretion.

The exercise of discretion is a personal responsibility entrusted to the Commissioner.

The heavy responsibilities falling on the Commissioner of Police because of the nature and demands of his job deserve sober consideration and respect. It would be untenable undermining of the Commissioner to subject willy-nilly the exercise of his legal discretion to microscopic examination. We have not done that.

On the other hand, while recognizing the necessity of discretion so extensive that sworn police men and women serve at the Commissioner’s will, it is incumbent upon the Commissioner to base the exercise of discretionary powers in the treatment of officers on good grounds and not on whim. We do not doubt that this has been the Commissioner’s general approach.

Particular cases and incidents were represented to us as reflecting favoured treatment of individual officers by the Commissioner. Ghost letter correspondence also made specific allegations in this regard. To the extent possible in an exercise such as ours with its time constraints, we examined these matters and the actions of the Commissioner in them for consistency with regular practice and reasonableness. The involvement of any one officer in multiple suspect events naturally calls for the closest examination of such events.

2.3.1 A Simple Matter of a Blow-out Inspector X crashed a Samoa Australia Police Partnership vehicle he was using to go home to Siumu on Thursday 28 February 2012. He was almost to Siumu when the right front tyre burst at about 8.40 – 9.00 p.m. causing the vehicle to swerve off the road to the left. This is how Inspector X explained the event in a report to the Commissioner on the next day 1 March 2013.

The same account was in a second report to the Traffic Section also dated 1 March 2013.

An investigation carried out by a senior sergeant of Traffic Division did not find anything unusual or at variance with Inspector X’s account of events. This report was sent to the Commissioner who asked in return for a recommendation on action to be taken from the Superintendent in charge of Traffic division.

On 12 March 2013 in a brief report that did not accord in important respects with the thrust of the investigation report earlier submitted by his subordinate officer, the Superintendent, Traffic Division recommended to the Commissioner a charge of careless driving against Inspector X.

The Assistant Commissioner did not buy the burst tyre story, concluding instead that Inspector X had fallen asleep and that the punctured tyre and broken steering bars were caused by the vehicle going off the road. He pointed out that Inspector X had told the first person to arrive on the scene immediately after the crash that he had fallen asleep. The Assistant Commissioner stressed that Inspector X had been driving the vehicle for too long that day to be still driving at the time of the accident.

One could infer from this that the Assistant Commissioner believed the accident to have happened later than Inspector X claimed.

The Assistant Commissioner pointed out also that the Inspector should not have driven the Partnership Project vehicle home.

The Commissioner by return minute dated 19 March 2013 directed that Inspector X be charged as recommended but this never happened and the case file does not explain why.

Inspector X told the Commission of Inquiry that things did not proceed because the Australian Federal Police Officer in charge of the Partnership Project had intervened to his benefit.

The Commissioner in sworn evidence to the Commission of Inquiry confirmed that the AFP Project Officer in charge did not press objection to Inspector X taking the vehicle home. It had been explained by a Superintendent Y in his report to the Commissioner that Inspector X had taken the vehicle home because he, the Superintendent had given permission. Superintendent Y apparently had the run of the vehicle on the day in question and Inspector X was driving for the Superintendent’s convenience. The two officers had been using the vehicle after hours to attend to private business of the Superintendent.

The issue of Inspector X taking the project vehicle home as raised by the Assistant Commissioner in his report to the Commissioner was relevant to possible disciplinary charges but irrelevant to the careless driving charge he had recommended. What did turn out to be relevant to that matter was the Commissioner’s acceptance, as indicated to the Commission of Inquiry, of the burst tyre as the cause of the accident thus sufficiently ruling out carelessness on the part of the driver. He told the Commission of Inquiry that the tyre did not show piercing but rather bursting damage.

Nothing of these explanations is recorded on file and as far as the final outcome of the matter is concerned, it would appear that no one had been in the “know” except for the Commissioner and a presumably much relieved Inspector X.

There are curious aspects to this case that close examination of the file reveals.

An oddity that jumps at the reader is the apparent avoidance of the Traffic Division of Police in the initial stages by Inspector X when it ought to have been instinctive for him to contact the division at the first opportunity in a situation where there was nothing to hide.

Inspector X ostensibly reported to the Commissioner and to the Traffic Division on the very next day 1 March in two separate reports according to the file. If these reports were intended separately to inform the Commissioner and the Traffic Division straight away about the accident, then quite clearly they did not succeed.

The record reflects that the Commissioner first learned of the matter from a report to him from the Superintendent who had authorized Inspector X to take the car home when the two of them had finished the Superintendent’s private chores. The Superintendent’s report was prepared four days after the accident on 4 March and was received in the Commissioner’s office on 5 March. The Commissioner directed Traffic Division to investigate the matter by written minute dated 5 March on the Superintendent’s report.

The Traffic Division supposedly commenced investigating the matter on 4 March on which date the investigating officer claims to have been given the report of Inspector X. Meanwhile the damaged police vehicle had been sitting at Asco Motors where Inspector X presumably had arranged for it to be brought by tow truck at about 9.00 a.m. on the morning of the accident 1 March. The driver of the tow truck was not interviewed by Police until just before 5.00 p.m. on 5 March 2013.

Inspector X in his report of the accident placed the time at 8.40 to 9.00 in the evening. The villager who was first on the scene says in his statement to Police that he, his wife and family were asleep when the crash awakened him. As stated earlier, reading between the lines, the Assistant Commissioner who had recommended the careless driving charge did not believe that the crash had happened as early as claimed.

There are statements in the investigation file dated 6 March 2013 by two police officers who state that on 28 February 2013 they were at a red traffic light in town at “6.00 p.m. going on to 7.00 p.m.” when they saw Superintendent Y and Inspector X “in a white land cruiser” alongside them. One officer states that they had been stationery for “about 20 minutes” when the other vehicle drew alongside. This seems an awfully long time to be stuck at a traffic light.

The statements by the two officers containing common phraseology appear gratuitously out of the blue seemingly with the sole purpose of establishing that the two senior officers had been back in town from attending to the Superintendent’s personal affairs early enough to make possible a subsequent crash at Siumu as early as 8.40 -9.00 p.m.

The whole investigation file smacks of pretence and concoction. The only credible document of police origin in it appears to be the Superintendent in charge of Traffic’s report to the Commissioner recommending a charge of careless driving against Inspector X. This recommended charge as stated earlier was quashed at the Commissioner’s discretion when he became satisfied that the crash had been caused by a burst tyre and not carelessness.

The Commissioner’s exercise of discretion to quash the charge against Inspector X was in our view not at all well based. He had before him the clear report of the most senior officer who had handled the case, the Superintendent, Traffic. If the right tyre had burst as claimed by Inspector X and accepted by the Commissioner, it virtually would have been physically impossible for the vehicle to veer left as it in fact did. It would have had to veer right.

The tyre must have been damaged along with the steering bars when the vehicle went off the road to the left. This conclusion accords with the Superintendent, Traffic’s summation of events in his report of 12 March 2013 wherein he recommended that Inspector X be charged with careless driving.

Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi, has confirmed the government’s plan to turn the multi-million-tala Samoa Land Corporation (S.L.C) building at Tuana’imato into a hotel.

The confirmation comes amidst reports that Tuilaepa, in a strongly-worded letter, had told the Corporation to vacate the building so that it could be turned into a money-making venture. Located at the Faleata Golf Course, the $4.25million building was opened in 2011.

During a media conference, Tuilaepa said the decision that was made by the new Minister of Public Enterprises, Lautafi Fio Purcell. And the Prime Minister supports the decision.

“The government’s vision is to run it like a business,” Tuilaepa said. “Running it like a business will generate income to finance the government’s budget.”

Tuilaepa said Minister Lautafi saw the potential for the government to generate revenue from the building at Tuana’imato so he asked the Corporation to move to the second floor of the Vaitele market.

The Vaitele market was also funded by the S.L.C. It remains largely unused.

The Prime Minister said after the Small Island Developing States (S.I.D.S) Conference at the end of this month, Samoa will then prepare to host other international meetings including the Tuna Commission’s meeting as well as the Commonwealth Youth Games next year..

With all these meetings happening in Samoa, Tuilaepa said people would need somewhere to stay. And the S.L.C’s building at Tuanaimato is an ideal venue.

“This is one of the quickest ways to generate income,” he said about accommodation providers.

Tuilaepa said Cabinet last week endorsed the decision by Minister Lautafi.

“The next step is to advertise the space for anyone interested to make use of the space (at Vaitele) that we had received so many complaints about.”

Contacted for a comment last week, Minister Lautafi did not confirm or deny the claim.

He said, however, that nothing is official “until further notice.”

The General Manager of S.L.C. Afoa Arasi Tiotio, declined to comment.

However, an inside source told the Samoa Observer that the management has been told to vacate the building so that it could be turned into a way to make money.

A long service staff member said the instruction came from the Prime Minister.

“So yes, we all aware about the changes,” the source said. “I am pretty sure that before the end of this year, we will move to use the second floor at Vaitele Market.”

The source added: “There’s nothing much we can do if that was from those above us.” When the Samoa Observer visited the second floor of the Vaitele Market last week, work has already begun to clear the space for the Corporation.

Of multiple slots available on the second floor, only one room is being used by the Samoa Water Authority. The rest of the market remains largely unused.

Opened a few years ago, the $5.7 million market, built by S.L.C, includes an expansive crops hall, a fish market that’s never been used as well as several shops that are empty.

According to a Report of the Controller and Chief Auditor, Fuimaono Camillo Afele to the Legislative Assembly, S.L.C fell $11million short of its revenue forecasts for the 2009-2010 Financial Year.

The report also highlighted that the Corporation overspent by $2.4 million, and paid $2.8 million to a “middle man” based in New Zealand.

“The Corporation did not achieve its budgeted revenue,” says Fuimaono’s report.

“Actual revenue was $11 million short of the budgeted revenue for the year.”

“The Corporation overcommitted to other projects which it could not fund,” the report reads.

OPPOSITION

The government’s plan though has already received criticisms from accommodation providers within the vicinity of Tuana’imato.

Some of them who spoke to the Sunday Samoan on the condition of anonymity said the government is tripping all over the place.

“So in one breath they ask the private sector to develop our properties and then in the very next breath they try to kill us,” says one business owner. “This is yet another classic case of the government competing with the private sector.”

“In the case of the S.L.C, they’ve already done that at Malifa with that new building they’ve just completed. And here they are doing it again here in Tuanaimato.”

“There are many accommodation providers in the area who are already struggling with poor occupation rates.”

Another accommodation provider agrees.

“It’s just sad,” she says. “So they are found to have mismanaged and abused public funds and now we the people who are paying taxes will have some of our business taken away because the government is opening a hotel in the area.” “This is not on.”

Friends, relatives and supporters of the parties involved in the much-publicised hearing of a 19-year-old accused over the deaths of two young boys last year will have to wait a little longer for the verdict.

Yesterday, when the hearing was scheduled to have wrapped up, the parties were informed by the Deputy Registrar, Veatauia Fa’atasi Puleiata that Chief Justice Patu Tiava’asu’e Falefatu Sapolu was “feeling unwell.”

As a result, the hearing was adjourned until Tuesday since tomorrow is a public holiday for Father’s Day.

Kohlhase faces four charges in relation to the deaths of Jessie Risale, 22, of Vaimoso and Thesaurus Heather, 20, of Tufuiopa.

She has pleaded not guilty to two counts of manslaughter and two alternative charges of negligent driving causing death.

Kohlhase is represented by Lei’ataualesa Daryl Clarke and Unasa Leilani Tamati.

They are up against the prosecution team made up of Precious Chang and Leone Su’a Mailo, of the Attorney General’s Office.

His Honour Patu is presiding over the assessor trial.

Yesterday, Lei’ataualesa was scheduled to complete his final submission, which started on Friday.

At the time, the lawyer reiterated that Kohlhase did not drive the vehicle when it crashed. He reminded the assessors that they have already provided witnesses, including one Fesola’i Laki Ifale, who saw Kohlhase walking away from the driver’s side.

“The deaths of Jessie Risale and Thesaurus Heather is no doubt a tragedy,” said Leiataualesa. “They were two young men with their lives ahead of them.”

Their deaths have had a ripple effect on the community, he stressed.

But the incident has also meant that Kohlhase’s life “has been changed forever.”

He said her client has been deeply affected by what had happened.

So for her sake, he said “justice” must be done and to achieve this, “make sure the right person is punished.”

Referring to his client, Lei’ataualesa said it would be an injustice if the wrong person were convicted for the crime. Further, convicting the wrong person would also be an injustice to the late Mr. Risale and Mr. Heather, he said.

Kohlhase’s lawyer said evidence throughout the past three weeks have proven that her client was not the driver when the crash happened.

But Mrs. Su’a-Mailo strongly disagreed.

During her final submission, she told the assessors that if they look back through the evidence presented during the past three weeks, the prosecution has proven beyond reasonable doubt that Kohlhase indeed drove the vehicle.

Further, it has been established quite clearly that the accused drove recklessly that night, endangering the lives of people in the car.

More than 20 witnesses including police officers, medical doctors, as well as eyewitnesses at the crash site have all testified about what they saw.

“The prosecution’s submission is that Leslie did drive the vehicle at the material time of the accident,” the assessors were told.

“It all boils down to who was the driver of the car. I ask you not to be side tracked with Fa’atoia [Tupu being the driver].”

Mrs. Su’a-Mailo said this particular case was a “very tragic and sad story” and those involved were “very young.”

That aside, the law states that when a person acts negligently, he/she must be punished,

“The law does not differentiate on who it applies to, it applies to all people who are in charge of a motor vehicle.”

The Samoa Life Assurance Corporation (S.L.A.C) is 37 years old.

To celebrate the milestone, the Corporation’s Board of Directors, management and staff members gathered at the Moanalisa Hotel at Vaitele for an evening to remember on Friday night.

Among the guests was Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi.

During his keynote address, Tuilaepa reiterated the importance of allowing competition to thrive in any market.

Because the insurance sector is opened to other service providers, S.L.A.C’s success over the years is the result of the management not being afraid of competition.

Tuilaepa congratulated S.L.A.C, wishing the Corporation all the best for the future.

Chief Executive Officer, Lei’ataua Alden Godinet, credited teamwork for the success of S.L.A.C so far.

At the Corporation, Lei’ataua said policyholders are looked after extremely well and it is that attitude that keeps them loyal. The C.E.O then thanked all policyholders for their continuous support in trusting WSLAC to keep them insured.

Lei’ataua said the company turned 37 on 1 July this year but they decided to hold the celebration until Friday.

Elisapeta Eteuati, a representative of the staff, cut the cake officially marking the special event.

According to its website, S.L.A.C offers a full range of policies and services as well as advisory service for personal and business insurance.

Samoa Life is committed to developing innovative, appropriate, affordable and quality insurance choices that reflects the needs of individuals and the local communities.

Through the various policies available we are not only providing financial protection but also promoting long-term savings.

S.L.A.C’s mission is to “maintain an acceptable level of good quality policies and continuously introduce new business to ensure growth and financial viability of the Corporation for the benefit of its members.”

Kiwi heavyweight Joseph Parker racked up his 10th consecutive win as a professional with a third-round knockout of American Keith Thompson in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

The six-round bout was called off 2min 41sec into the third round after Parker, who dominated the first two rounds, unloaded in the third with two knockdowns to finish Thompson off, boxingscene.com said.

Parker, who has amassed nine knockouts in his 10 wins, worked Thompson over with his left jab early on and continued to inflict damage with his right in the second round.

The 1.92m tall Kiwi decked Thompson with a left hook early in the third, then wrapped up the win with a flurry of punches which again floored the 33-year-old American.

Parker's next fight is against Sherman Williams from the Bahamas in Auckland in October.

Fellow Kiwi Robert Berridge wasn't so lucky, losing his light heavyweight 12-round bout to towering Russian Vasily Lepikhin by a technical knockout in the fifth round.

Berridge gave up a huge advantage to the Russian in height and reach, and was knocked down once in the second round and three times in the fifth with just over a minute remaining.

According to climatefriendly.com, 3,000 people flying from Los Angeles Apia, Samoa – a distance of 7,800km – generates 11,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide. By contrast on average, one broad-leaf tree will absorb about 10kg of carbon dioxide a year.

Samoa is calling for citizens around the world to help offset carbon emissions as a result of the largest global meeting to be held the Pacific Islands.

The Offset Islands 2014 campaign aims to counter carbon generated from the Third International Conference of Small Island Developing States in September. It is being led by Women in Business Development Inc and has received the backing from Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi.

In a letter of support, Prime Minister Tuilaepa says he “commends this milestone initiative by the Women in Business Development Inc (W.I.B.D.I) in engaging our village communities and the people of Samoa, the Pacific and the world at large via awareness programmes, replanting of trees and rekindling of organic farming to offset carbon emissions”.

Women in Business Development executive director, Adimaimalaga Tafuna’i, says there are environmental repercussions from all the carbon emissions despite green measures government had put in place such as solar-powered conference facilities.

The non-governmental organization, which has a network of certified organic farms, is asking people to people to plant a tree, compost or mulch to offset carbon emissions.

“If all our farmers, our gardeners actively plant trees, compost and mulch organic material, we can make a difference,” says Tafuna’i. “What’s more, we are also asking other nations – our Pacific neighbours, our Caribbean friends and Indian

Ocean colleagues and citizens around the world – to join our efforts.”

“Most people know that trees are key to offsetting carbon emissions. Composting and mulching are also powerful techniques to lock in carbon and they have the added benefit of improving how water interacts with soil, making it more resilient during droughts and floods, and improving garden produce.”

Tuilaepa, who heads the Samoa Organic Advisory Committee and the Pacific High Level Organics Group, says the government will support the campaign and work collaboratively with the non-governmental organizations and other organisations to minimize the carbon footprint of the S.I.D.S meeting.

Women in Business Development has partnered with Samoa’s daily newspaper, Samoa Observer, for the Offset Islands 2014 campaign, which features 30-days of carbon offsetting daily news, advice and campaign updates.
It has also set up a Facebook page for people to upload their pictures and videos. At the end of the campaign, a tally of all the trees, composting and mulching efforts will added up to see approximately how much carbon has been offset.

Samoa Observer editor, Mata’afa Keni Lesa, says with the global meeting attracting more than 3,000 people to the island nation including heads of government, United Nations delegates and business leaders to the small island nation, there will be a sharp spike in air travel and energy consumption and consequently carbon emissions.

“We need to act collectively. Our role as media is to spread the word and get people thinking and acting in ways that will make our planet more resilient.”

According to climatefriendly.com, 3,000 people flying from Los Angeles Apia, Samoa – a distance of 7,800km – generates 11,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide. By contrast on average, one broad-leaf tree will absorb about 10kg of carbon dioxide a year.

“There is more carbon being produced than our earth can process,” says Tafuna’i, “and we are seeing the effects with the heating up of our earth, rising sea levels, ocean acidification and more extreme weather events.”

In April, the World Meteorological Office reported record highs of carbon concentrations in the atmosphere in the Northern Hemisphere.

During the month-long campaign, climate-change and carbon-offsetting initiatives that are taking place through the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environmental Programme (S.P.R.E.P) will also be highlighted.

S.P.R.E.P has been working with the Samoa Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment to help make the Samoa conference environmentally friendly.

Samoan heavyweight boxer Joseph Parker has done it again.

He unleashed all of his speed and power to secure a third round knock out win over American Keith Thompson in the United States on Sunday.

The 22-year-old relentlessly stalked Thompson and took him to the canvas early in the third round with an uppercut and finished him off soon after with a brutal flurry at the Sands Casino in Bethlehem on the outskirts of Philadelphia.
The official time was 2m 41s into round three.

The win lifts Parker's record to 10 consecutive wins as a professional, nine of them by knockout.

The result, on a fight scheduled for just six rounds against a lowly-rated opponent, won't do much for his No 15 ranking with the

WBO, but it will certainly have helped his profile on the crucial American market with the fight televised live by broadcast giant NBC.

Parker's handlers were demanding an impressive knockout today and he duly delivered.

Using his trademark speed and power, along with his economy of movement, Parker overwhelmed Thompson.

The 33-year-old Thompson is a long-term sparring partner of America's best heavyweight prospect, the unbeaten Deontay Wilder and trained with him in his preparations for this fight.

Thompson was coming off an April win against another American, Derek Walker. He hardly fired a shot, being on the back foot throughout.

Parker now sets his sights on an Auckland date with Sherman Williams from the Bahamas.

They line out on October 16 with Parker's promoters also wanting him to headline December's Fight For Life against a top 10 opponent to round out a busy and successful year.

Parker was clearly dominant from the opening bell today, whipping his jab into Thompson's body, quickly finding his range but also showing patience with his big shots.

Thompson landed a left hook to Parker's head in the second round that angered the Kiwi into unleashing a flurry of good combinations.

That continued with relentless pace in the third round with a quick finish inevitable.

Parker said he had felt a ''bit flat'' at times but was thrilled with his victory.

''I'm thankful for the win and the opportunity to fight in the United States,'' he said.

''My coach (Kevin Barry) said to take my time with my shots. It was a bit wild there at the end, I could tell he was tiring and I got the victory and that's what matters most.''

“I know many people look down on farming. But seeing the displays here and what knowledge about proper farming techniques can achieve is exciting. It’s something I’m interested in” – Charles

The University of the South Pacific’s (U.S.P) Alafua campus had promised that its Open Day this year would be bigger and better.

On Friday when hundreds of students gathered on campus, that’s precisely what they saw.

Many of them were overwhelmed and inspired by demonstrations and displays about the programmes and courses on offer at the institution.

Guided by the theme “USP - Shaping Your Future,” the day gave the students an opportunity to peak into the life of the University, what it stands for and what its goals are.

There was a lot to see. For instance, there was a demonstration of a mobile laboratory where soil testing is done. There was also a demonstration of vermicomposting where the tiny earth animals can be put into good use.

For students interested in livestock, “The Paddock” was a popular choice.

A promotion of crop diversification from the garden plots prepared by the Agriculture students was another popular attraction.

But that wasn’t all. The Information Technology Team showcased the state-of-the-art facilities enabling online learning in the delivery of the Distance and Flexible Learning mode. Students saw how they could acquire a degree from the convenience of their own homes.

Elsewhere, they had the chance to tour the newly established College of Foundation Studies facilities which offers two programmes at the pre-degree level: Preliminary and the Foundation Programme. These programmes provide progressive pathways to higher programme at U.S.P.

For many of the students, the trip to Alafua was worthwhile.

“It’s one of them things that makes you want to study at the University,” said Litolina Vau, who was among the students there.

“Just seeing the programme that are available and the opportunities that they could open up if you succeed during your studies, is really inspiring. I cannot wait to start here.”

Litolina was not the only one excited.

Another young student who made the trip from the rural villages to Alafua said he was encouraged by what he saw.

“I know many people look down on farming,” Charles said. “But seeing the displays here and what knowledge about proper farming techniques can achieve is exciting. It’s something I’m interested in.”

As with most things Pacific, the day ended with dancing, singing and of course some wonderful food.

Kiwi heavyweight Joseph Parker racked up his 10th consecutive win as a professional with a third-round knockout of American Keith Thompson in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

The six-round bout was called off 2min 41sec into the third round after Parker, who dominated the first two rounds, unloaded in the third with two knockdowns to finish Thompson off, boxingscene.com said.

Parker, who has amassed nine knockouts in his 10 wins, worked Thompson over with his left jab early on and continued to inflict damage with his right in the second round.

The 1.92m tall Kiwi decked Thompson with a left hook early in the third, then wrapped up the win with a flurry of punches which again floored the 33-year-old American.

Parker's next fight is against Sherman Williams from the Bahamas in Auckland in October.

Fellow Kiwi Robert Berridge wasn't so lucky, losing his light heavyweight 12-round bout to towering Russian Vasily Lepikhin by a technical knockout in the fifth round.

Berridge gave up a huge advantage to the Russian in height and reach, and was knocked down once in the second round and three times in the fifth with just over a minute remaining.

“It would appear that uneasiness about things at Tafaigata came to a head for her when her husband, also a police officer at Tafaigata with the rank of Senior Sergeant at the time was dismissed. She believed that her husband’s dismissal was unreasonable”

The woman who wrote the so-called “ghost letter” that prompted a Commission of Inquiry into allegations of mismanagement and misadministration at the Prison has been identified and vindicated.

A copy of the Commission’s report obtained by the Sunday Samoan identifies the writer as Ms Adeline Sa'u Godinet.

“The Commission has found that while this investigation was triggered by a ‘ghost letter’, the writer of this letter, Ms Adeline Sa'u Godinet Sa’u is a genuine whistleblower

who was concerned about the sub standard state of the prison services,” the report reads.

“The Commission has found much of substance in her concerns and revelations. Indeed, the Inquiry has fully vindicated her.

“The Commission moreover has grave doubts as discussed in this report that justice and reasonableness were properly served by her dismissal considering the substantive aspects, the manner and the circumstances of her charging.

“The Commission recommends that she be re-instated as a prison officer.”

This was among recommendations made by the Commission of Inquiry in its report to Cabinet.

The Commission of Inquiry was chaired by the Ombudsman, Maiava Iulai Toma. Other members of the Commission were Gatoloa’i Tili Afamasaga and Su’a Tanielu Su’a. Lawyers Sine Lafaiali’i Koria and Sefo Ainuu, of the Attorney General’s Office, assisted.

The Inquiry was prompted by Ms Godinet’s letter and sequel correspondence pointing to widespread misconduct and deviant sexual activity in Tafa’igata Prison.

The letter alluded to liaisons between police officers and inmates and to rampant homosexuality among female inmates and with wardens. It also alleged favouritism in the treatment of officers in the Samoa Police Force.

The Commission confirmed many of the allegations, as well as confirmed the shocking state of the Tafa’igata Prison.

Below is the continuation of the Commission of Inquiry’s report. The first part was published in the Sunday Samoan.

2.3.2 Attempted Intercourse with Junior Officer at Faleata Police Post

A young police woman told the Commission of Inquiry that she had had to fight off the officer in charge of her shift who was bent on having intercourse with her on two occasions during duty hours. The woman was barely an adult at the time and had been assigned to duties at the Faleata Police post.

The attacks had occurred about three weeks apart in the small hours of the morning when other officers were on patrol leaving only the senior sergeant and herself in the police post.

According to the witness she was accosted while napping. She was physically overwhelmed on both occasions by the commanding officer’s strength, slaps and vicious pinching as she struggled with him to keep her clothes on. She was luckily spared the ultimate violation on each occasion by the man’s own physical inabilities at the crucial stages of his attacks.

She told no one because she was embarrassed and ashamed. She thought that she had best just somehow cope with things on her own. She took private solace in the knowledge that he hadn’t succeeded in his attempt to have his way with her.

After the two attacks, he pestered and verbally harassed her from time to time. On one occasion about three months from the first attack he got violent again and slapped her around when she repulsed a physical advance when they were again alone in the police post. She felt after this that she could no longer cope. Her father had been unwell so she did not want to burden him with her problem. She determined to see the Superintendent in charge of the Police Post about a transfer or resignation on his return from a trip he was on at the time.

The troubled young officer unburdened herself to the Superintendent soon after and showed him her bruises from the most recent attack. She was instructed to write a full report. This she did and submitted it to the Superintendent.

The report was given to the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) and criminal charges were actively pursued. After some time the witness and her alleged assailant were summoned before the Commissioner of Police to discuss the matter.

Things are not very clear from here on. We understand that the Commissioner explained why a rape charge could not be sustained. We understand also that there was some suggestion of possible charges against the police woman for submitting false information. Nothing came of this. Matters also apparently came to an end with respect to the young officer’s complaint against her superior officer.

We were not able to look further into the matter because police were not able to produce the file for examination. We did learn however that while the complaint was under investigation two police officers visited the complainant’s father to apologize for what had happened to his daughter. One of these officers testified before the Commission of Inquiry to that effect.

In the absence of the file, legitimate questions remain unanswered.

We gather that rape was the sole charge investigated. This however on the information available appears the most inappropriate offense to even consider and therefore the easiest investigation once commenced to set aside. There are several other lesser criminal offenses to which the information appears relevant. Why were these not considered and pursued? Furthermore leaving aside criminal offenses, why were sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct not pursued with a view to disciplinary charges?

2.3.3 Yet another Police Vehicle Write-off

It was submitted to us in evidence that a police vehicle had been written off in a crash in 2012. A senior officer, across whose desk information on the incident passed at the time, testified that the matter was uncomplicated and should have been easily pursued to charges. He testified that the consumption of liquour by the officer involved was a clear issue and that he had suggested to the Commissioner that the officer not proceed on a planned overseas mission.

The matter went ultimately to the Commissioner where it apparently fizzled out. The Commissioner told the Commission of Inquiry that the officer was merely tired and that liquor consumption was not an issue.

On this matter also like the matter immediately above, police were not able to make the file available. It happens also that the officer involved in that previous matter is also the subject officer in this matter. Curiously, these are the only two files sought by the Commission of Inquiry that police were not able to produce.

The officer implicated in these two matters is presently serving an overseas mission assignment. Presumably he is now safe from any charges because of s67 (1) of the Police Service Act 2009.

2.3.4 Ghost Letter allegations of special treatment
(Immunity sweet immunity)

Ghost Letter correspondence named a certain serving officer as a recipient of favoured treatment from the police. The basis of the accusation is the fact that a 2008 Commission of Inquiry into the Illegal Importation of Guns from American

Samoa had identified that particular officer along with the then Commissioner to be penalized for their involvement in the matter examined by that Commission. The ghost letter reasoned that the officer continues to be immune from penalty because he is a “drinking buddy” of the Commissioner.

The officer certainly does not seem to have been penalized and appears to have come through the earlier matter unscathed to be later promoted. The blame for this apparent lapse put at the door of the current Commissioner by the ghost letter may however not be fully justified. This is because the Commissioner of Police with the power to act on that matter at the time was not the current Commissioner but his predecessor who as indicated above was himself implicated in the matter.

With regard to the present Commission of Inquiry, the officer pointed out by the ghost letter happens to be the Superintendent who features in the “simple matter of a blown tyre” case above. He is also the Superintendent who features in the case of the trussed up deportee discussed below under the heading “Costly Inaction/Derelict Accountability”.

When the Commission of Inquiry called for a list of police officers for purposes of this report, we found the particular Superintendent listed in the Commissioner’s Office and the only one of the unit without a described function.
(A fast rising unusual recruit)

A female officer called by the Commission in connection with allegations against her in the ghost letter which were not employment related, could not be stopped from telling the Commission about her skills and her employment in the police.

Ghost letter correspondence had created suspicion by innuendo on this officer with allegations that she was treated in an unusually indulgent manner by the Commissioner. Apart from allegedly being able to have transport home arranged easily for herself she was reportedly allowed to join the Commissioner and senior colleagues at after hours relaxation sessions at bars. Furthermore, she reportedly was able on those occasions to address the Commissioner in manner and unrestrained speech that normally would never be tolerated from junior ranks.

There was nothing of moment in the officer’s evidence on the matters for which she was called. The Commission became very interested however in the evidence she thrust upon it about her employment and work with the police.
It appears that the woman had wanted to be a police officer but was not accepted in the normal recruitment process because she was over the allowable age. After talking to the Assistant Commissioner (Prisons) she applied and was recruited into the police for Tafaigata, supposedly because her degree in applied psychology would be useful. The officer said that she had worked only 1/2 a day in Tafaigata when she was required on orders from the Commissioner to report to general policing. Shortly afterwards as a constable she was put through the normal 3 month recruit course at headquarters from October to December 2010. She was transferred to the Domestic Violence Unit in 2011.

When a non sworn civilian position in the Policy and Planning Division was advertised in 2011 the officer applied and was successful after the job was advertised a second time. The job in the police system apparently was classified as equivalent to senior sergeant level for appointees qualified to hold that rank.

The constable applicant was appointed a senior planning and policy officer about September 2011. Shortly afterwards she was confirmed as a senior sergeant in a promotion parade. She had thereby shot up three ranks in one step without sitting or passing a single qualifying examination for higher rank as normally required for advancement in the uniformed ranks.

The Commissioner told the Commission of Inquiry that he had used his discretion to promote the officer to senior sergeant rank because of her qualifications. The Commission suggested to the Commissioner that the officer’s

The statements obtained in the course of the investigation from the two other officers present were however in unequivocal vindication of Adelaine’s conduct of the entire matter as the ranking officer on duty.

It was revealed that the initial reports filed by the two officers on the incident had been prepared by Adeline on her computer with the full knowledge of the officers concerned. One officer had read the statement prepared in her name and had signed it. The other did not disagree with the content of the statement prepared in her name but had not signed the document. Adeline had obliged with a signature.

It was this aspect and not the original complaint of substantive fabrication and inappropriate treatment of prisoners that was later submitted to headquarters for investigation. Adelaine admitted guilt. She was reprimanded by the

Commissioner and black marked on her file.

It is our general impression that the prison is careful about upholding the disciplining authority of the police officers vis-a-vis prisoners. The Assistant Commissioner’s ready disregard of this unspoken rule is puzzling and the circumstances of his intervention somewhat strange.

The speed with which the Assistant Commissioner was able from his lofty position in the prison hierarchy to personally release the two female prisoners early the following morning and to initiate the investigation is curious. Furthermore the original complaint was so wide of the mark as to make ludicrous the certainty within which the Assistant Commissioner had framed it. Very likely the whole thing was prisoner inspired and shows that a prisoner had had the ear of the

Assistant Commissioner on this occasion more so than had one of his prison officers.

Ironically, the central issue raised by Adeline Godinet in her conversation with the volunteer leader was the undermining of warden effectiveness by informal alliances and connectedness between police and inmates. A junior female police officer was very clear on this phenomenon in her evidence before the Commission of Inquiry. Prisoners also are on file testifying to the influence prisoners are able to have on wardens through material benefits made available to the latter and the consequences of these on wardens’ performance of duties and treatment of prisoners. A Report filed by Adeline Godinet on 24 September 2011 attached as Annex B also explains further.

Recorded black marks against a police officer in his or her file establish the risk of dismissal on further appearances before the Commissioner. When Adelaine was put foward for investigation following the report to the Assistant

Commissioner of her conversation with the volunteer group leader it was with this background knowledge in mind and consequently also with termination in sight. The closing sentence of the Assistant Commissioner’s complaint to the

Commissioner makes this clear: “ O lea e tuuina atu ai lenei lipoti mo le silafia e Lau Afioga ma talosagaina le suesueina o lenei mataupu e le Professional Standard ma molia ai le tamaitai leoleo ini moliaga talafeagai ma faate’a atu ai.”

The gist of allegations by the Assistant Commissioner against Adeline Godinet on this final occasion was “revealing confidential information to the public”. The PSU concluded that she had indeed violated regulations in this regard and furthermore had brought disrepute upon Police and Prisons. As indicated above the officer accepted guilt and was dismissed from the Police.

Technically and procedurally speaking, things fall neatly into place. Pertinent questions however remain. We quote below the substance of the Assistant Commissioner’s complaint of “revealing confidential information to the public by

Wardress Adeline S Godinet”:

“I le aso ananafi 20/2/2013, sa oo mai ai le tina o ---- --- o loo taitaia le Fortress of Faith ma faailoa mai ia te au le oo atu o le tamaitai leoleo o Adelaine Sa’u Godinet ma talosagaina se fesoasoani mai le latou ministry. Sa faamatala e Adeline ia ___ le faafitauli tele o loo gafa ma leoleo i le le usitai o pagota ma le faikegi o leoleo ma pagota. Sa talosaga la e Adeline pe mafai ona o atu i le falepuipui o teine mo se latou faatalatalanoaga ma teine leoleo. Sa faamatala uma e Adeline faaletonu o loo tupu i le va o teine leoleo ma tamaitai pagota.

Na faailoa iai e ---- pe aisea ua le sau ai e logo a’u ae fai i ai ua fiu e logo a’u e leai se mea o fai iai.

O lenei lava tamaitai leoleo ua avea ma lago mate i le aufaigaluega. E le faia lelei lana galuega ae vaavaai masei ma faasalalau solo. E pei foi ona faailoa atu le tusi sa ia faia ma ave i le Victim Support e faaleaga ai a’u.”

We pose the following questions:

Is the above the kind of information that should be protected by confidential classification?

Should fault be attributed to the officer for any disrepute the revelations may have brought upon Police and Prisons?

Was information revealed by Adeline as confidential, or did it bring as much disrepute as the revelations of the video film that found its way into the inter-net?

Did it bring as much disrepute or cause as much harm as the actions of the officers who were implicated in the deportation fiasco that cost the Government $258,528.00?

There is no doubt in our minds that the officer Adeline Godinet was acting in the spirit of a whistle-blower. The officer had earlier addressed two letters dated 14 February 2010 and 16 December 2011 to the Samoa Victims Support Group on the problems in the prison that were worrying her. The essence of these problems were succinctly described (and obviously well understood) by the Assistant Commissioner (Prisons) himself in his letter to the Commissioner noted above requesting the investigation of Adeline. Interestingly, the prison boss, in that letter, does not challenge the correctness of Adeline’s account of these matters. What he is incensed about seemingly is Adeline daring to be openly truthful about these matters to an outsider in her appeal for help.

In enlightened countries she would have been protected, not severely punished as she was by the Samoa Police and Prisons Service for her revelations.

2.5 Misuse of Police Power/Indifferent Accountability

A Samoan woman who lives abroad flew to Samoa from New Zealand for one day to appear before the Commission of Inquiry. Ms Woodroffe, a lawyer was keen to explain to the Commission how she was intimidated in October 2008 by the Samoa Police into real fear for her and her daughter’s safety while alone in the assumed security of her fenced in private property.

Background to her experience was highly publicised alleged mistreatment by the police of another woman lawyer a few weeks earlier. Ms Woodroffe’s story too received extensive newspaper coverage at the time of the events. She had also submitted sworn affidavits concerning the incident to the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman’s office had apparently formed the view early in their exploratory inquiries that, come hell or high water, the police were set on maintaining a version of events that did not accord in critical areas with the story told by the complainant.

Be that as it may, elements in Ms Woodroffe’s story feature consistently and with similar effect in other incidents that have come to the attention of the Commission of Inquiry. One element is the arrival of the police in numbers so disproportionately large as to be unquestionably intimidating for the person who is target of police attention.

The Commission is familiar with another publicised incident in which the police acted in very similar manner to that claimed by Ms Woodroffe. In that other incident, the case of the ‘Green Ridge Motel’ investigated by the Ombudsman in

December 2012, the police arrived without identification and demanded to be accommodated in their quest simply because they were police and had so stated.

They deployed officers in larger numbers than necessary for the task at hand and even resorted to the disingenuous use of a search warrant to prevail over a citizen and her legitimate rights under law.

The Ombudsman in his publicised report on that case said: “In this, police lost their way and rode roughshod over the legitimate rights and interests of an innocent affected party as between that party and [another]. Police treatment of the

Green Ridge motel and its owner was unreasonable because it was unfair. It was oppressive. It was wrong. Rather than the police acting reasonably within police powers as claimed, police in this instance misused power”.

The following cases give some insight into the exercise of power by the police:

2.5.1 Lotu Tamaiti in the Lock-up

Mrs L and her husband told the Commission of Inquiry that the Police disturbed their household on the eve of the Lotu Tamaiti 13 October 2012 and proceeded to treat L (49) and son M (27) atrociously.

The incident began with the arrival of a double cab pick-up carrying seven (7) policemen.

“I know many people look down on farming. But seeing the displays here and what knowledge about proper farming techniques can achieve is exciting. It’s something I’m interested in” – Charles

For his dedication to his flock, Father Ponventura Luatuanu’u was given a car by his Malie Mafutaga o Tinā Catholic Church Parish.

The car was given to him following the morning Mass last Sunday.

Deacon Paulo Mulipola cut the ribbon on the car and presented the gift on behalf of the parish.

Church member Le’aupepe Malelega Leafa said the church members had always wanted to buy a car for Father Ponventura.

“We finally did it,” he said.

“Father Ponventura comes all this way during the week, especially on Sundays from Saleimoa for our masses, but he had no car."

“So we thought about it and decided that this might be the greatest gift for him especially since today is Father’s Day in our country."

“Thank you so much for everything.”

Father Ponventura acknowledged the congregation for their thoughtful gift and for their support.

“I am very thankful for this gift, this car will be very useful in doing God’s work,” he said.

“May our Heavenly Father continue to bless you all in everything."

“Fa’afetai! Fa’afetai tele lava!”

Three people were lucky to be alive following a car accident that, according to an eyewitness, left the driver seriously injured.

A security guard at the Football Federation Samoa (F.F.S.) who saw the crash said the accident occurred last Friday night at Tuana’imato.

The guard, who wished to remain unnamed, alleged the car was travelling from Apia at a very high speed.

“I think the driver failed to control his speed which saw the vehicle fly over the ditch,” he said.

“It then rolled into a coconut tree snapping it in two.”

Another eyewitness claimed there were three men inside the van including the driver.

“The other two came running out the gate after the accident happened,” he said.

“They left the driver inside the van…and I think he was seriously injured.”

When the Samoa Observer arrived at the scene of the accident the F.F.S. gate was being repaired.

Comment was sought from police but none were forthcoming at the time of press.

“I don't accept the verdict. Let God be the judge of this matter”

Tears were aplenty in and outside the Supreme Court late yesterday evening where 19-year-old, Leslie Kohlhase, was found not guilty of four charges against her.

The verdict, delivered by four assessors after less than two hours of deliberation, was greeted by sighs of relief by Kohlhase, her legal team and supporters.

Kohlhase had pleaded not guilty to two charges of manslaughter and two alternative charges of negligent driving causing death.

The crash at Vailoa last year, which led to the charges against her, caused the deaths of Jessie Risale, 22, of Vaimoso and Thesaurus Heather, 20, of Tufuiopa.

Last evening, all four assessors were convinced that she was not the driver of the vehicle that morning. In doing so, they found her not guilty of all the charges.

The verdict followed two days of final submissions by lawyers.

Kohlhase was represented by Lei’ataualesa Daryl Clarke and Unasa Leilani Tamati. They are up against the prosecution team made up of Precious Chang and Leone Su’a

Mailo, of the Attorney General’s Office.

The Chief Justice, his Honour Patu Tiava’asu’e Falefatu Sapolu, presided.

The prosecution claimed that they had proven beyond reasonable doubt that Kohlhase indeed drove the vehicle that crashed and killed the two young men last year.

Further, they argued that it had established quite clearly that the accused drove recklessly, endangering the lives of people in the car.

But Leiataualesa disagreed. He reiterated that Kohlhase did not drive the vehicle when it crashed.

Kohlhase’s lawyer said evidence throughout the past three weeks had proven that her client was not the driver when the crash happened.

In the end, the assessors agreed with Lei’ataualesa.

Chief Justice Patu later dismissed all the charges against the defendant.

Neither Lei’ataua, nor his client or any of her relatives would speak to the media after yesterday’s verdict.

Outside the Court room, however, the mother of the late Thesaurus Schuster Heather, May Heather, was in tears.

“I don't accept the verdict,” she said. “This is really not fair for our families. There is still no justice.”

Ms. Heather said she understood that the assessors could have found the defendant not guilty of some of the charges but to have acquitted her of all the charges was simply unacceptable.

“So I’m very disappointed with the verdict.”

Asked if they would appeal, she said they would have to think about it.

For now though, she said: “Let God be the judge of this matter.”

An outbreak of disease is the biggest concern harboured by the Ministry of Health (M.O.H.) as it gears up for the Small Island Developing States (S.I.D.S.) Conference.

Talking exclusively to the Samoa Observer the Director General of Health, Leausa Dr Take Naseri, said that as many people were travelling to Samoa to take part in the event his department was preparing for all contingencies that may arise.

“But the challenge now is the potential of an outbreak during S.I.D.S. and a lot of people are coming,” he said.

“This virus spread by mosquitoes, the Chikungunya, can cause problems because there is a high morbidity (illness) rate.”

Looking to the local population, Leausa said Samoans’ physiology was quite naïve when it came to the virus, an outbreak of which is still yet to be confirmed, because the country had never experienced this virus before.

“The Samoan population has not been exposed to any Chickungunya before,” he said.

“It is a new virus and we don't know how our systems are going to react to combat the virus."

“With the high rate of diabetes, hypertension, and all these non-communicable diseases you never know how the body will react and it may carry a high fatality rate."

“So that is the scary part.”

He said while reports from American Samoa were reading that many people were getting sick but were not dying, over here it may be slightly different.

“But we hope the disease will be like what we read on the studies done on it – people get sick but they don't die of it,” he said.

“That is the challenge."

“Our population is quite naïve they haven’t been exposed to this virus, naïve in the sense that (people here) haven’t been exposed to it."

“We are a small population and a lot of people will be involved in the S.I.D.S.”

Leausa said both the M.O.H. and National Health Service had taken steps to put preventative measures in place, like spraying for mosquitoes.

“We are educating the public and doing population based studies and (are looking at) intervention and preventative measure’s,” he said.

“We have done a lot of planning for that.”

The Director General said on a more macro level his Ministry was responsible for the health security of the conference.

“We have given out travel advice to all the people coming, it is now on the S.I.D.S. website,” he said.

“In addition to giving travel advice we will also be looking at the information on the immigration arrival information form where we can pick up some diseases.”

“We have lifted our boarder control level and have been spraying the international airports and international wharfs.”

“We are already spraying the airplanes on arrival especially the planes from American Samoa.”

“We have appointed a doctor to take questions - Tagaloa Dr Robert Thomsen will be the contact person.”

“And we are trying to educate the public of the different people and you never know what they can bring in terms of disease.”

Leausa said another preventative measure his Ministry is taking is to educate food handlers in the proper manner to handle food.

“We are doing a lot of training with the food handlers so that the food is safe for consumption by everyone,” he said.

“Currently there is a training downstairs (at the M.O.H.) for food handlers today and tomorrow (last week), and then closer to the conference we will up date them again on this.”

“We are sending people to monitor the public facilities as we have trained people on the hygienic way to be clean.”

“We have upped our monitoring during the conference, we are going to monitor the food courts we and the venues to ensure proper sanitation and hygiene levels.”

“We are also looking at where they are going to post their waste especially with the cruise ship down in town.”

“And we have a clinic set up for anyone who is sick.”

He said in addition to this his security team have plans for both a mass casualty event and a plan for a disease outbreak.

“We have plans if there is a potential mass casualty event and a plan for an outbreak of disease,” he said.

“They are both now with our security sub committee.”

Leausa said furthermore the M.O.H. is, in partnership with the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (S.P.C.) and the World Health Organisation (W.H.O.), working on mass gathering disease surveillance.

According to America’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (C.D.C.) implementing such surveillance might help detect outbreaks or possible acts of biologic terrorism and enable prompt public health intervention.

“We have planned this with the W.H.O. and S.P.C.,” he said.

“We started when we learned of the outbreak of the Chikungunya and the was at the potential threat of an outbreak of Chikungunya over here.”

“So now we have S.P.C. and W.H.O. down here working with us not just for Chikungunya but for any disease that can pop up from the common flu to S.T.I.’s”

The Director General said in all their preparations the United Nations (U.N.) has not flagged any problems with his Ministry’s preparations for the event.”

“They (the U.N.) wanted to know what is our mass casualty plan, what are we doing,” said Leausa. “We have that in place they have agreed with most of what we are doing, at the boarder control point of entry.”

“I think we have complied with a lot of what they have requested.”