By Staff Writer
‘Pigs head thrower’ Talalelei Pauga, has failed to win release from custody to await an extradition hearing for the alleged conspiracy to kill the Prime Minister of Samoa.
The 43-year-old Pauga has been locked up since 20 August 2020 in response to an official request for extradition.
Samoa went through the legal channels for the Australia citizen of Samoan heritage to be brought to Apia to stand trail against the serious criminal allegations.
A magistrate court in Australia ruled last week to continue to keep Pauga in custody against an application for release by his lawyers.
Australia’s Associated Press reported that magistrate Belinda Merrin last Friday rejected the Pauga application as justly dealt with in accordance with the legislation.
“In extradition cases, the general rule is that the defendant is to be held in custody,” she said quoting case law.
Pauga is to make a second attempt next week for release when an application by his lawyers under the Queensland Human Rights Act is heard in court on 8 October 2020.
The application by Samoa for extradition is scheduled for mention in court on 30 October 2020.
Lawyers for Pauga are fighting the extradition court application from going ahead.
The defendant is already familiar with the local courts where he was convicted of making false declarations on his arrival documents on a visit to Samoa in 2019.
He was forced to pay up his full fine before the court would allow him to return to Australia.
It was after he was back in Australia that the allegations of conspiracy to kill the Prime Minister later emerged.
An investigation by Samoan police of several local suspects allegedly involved in the conspiracy revealed a key role Pauga is suspected of playing.
A senior police officer confirmed that the application for Pauga’s extradition is based on the findings from the police criminal investigation into the alleged conspiracy to kill.
“ Usually in extradition cases like this the final court ruling on whether to extradite or not depends on the weight of evidence,” Deputy Commissioner Auapaau Logoitino Filipo explained to Newsline Samoa.
“Extradition cases are not easy because the person concerned is a foreign citizen so we to convince with our evidence for the country to release their citizen.”
The Office of the Attorney General is keeping watch from a distance to allow for the legal process to run its full course.
“We will be informed of the outcome when a ruling is made so we will just have to wait,” Attorney General Savalenoa Mareva Betham-Annandale told Newsline Samoa earlier.
Savalenoa said her office will decide on what action to take once it is officially informed of the legal outcome.
Pauga was an unknown until he emerged out of nowhere to attack the Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, while on a visit to Brisbane about two years ago.
Two other people are already awaiting local court hearings on allegations of the same conspiracy Pauga is implicated in to kill the Prime Minister.
