Komo Men Get Six Years for Kidnapping Australian, Locals in Hela, PNG

​Two men from Komo, Hela Province, Papua New Guinea, have been sentenced to six years in prison for kidnapping an Australian national and three locals in a 2022 incident. The men, Donald Tamu, 40, and Ngibe Minape, 23, both from Jokolopa village, were found guilty of holding the victims hostage for four days while demanding a K5 million ransom.

The National Court, presided over by Judge Laura Wawun-Kuvi, stressed that kidnapping for ransom is a grave crime that inflicts lasting trauma on the victims and their families. The two men admitted to kidnapping Australian Timothy Stephen Bradley and locals Robin Febuar, Joshua Walukia, and Dickson Tipou at the Moran Oil Field in Komo on Sept 21, 2022, before releasing them on Sept 25, 2022.

During the court proceedings, Tamu revealed that the kidnapping was driven by the villagers’ demand for their share of K5 million from the Government, the Mineral Resource Development Company, and the Department of Petroleum and Energy. One of their co-accused passed away in remand at Bomana prison in June.

Judge Wawun-Kuvi ordered the men to serve their sentences at Bomana Correctional Service in Port Moresby, with light labor for the first four months. Afterward, they will be transferred to the Baisu Correctional Service in Western Highlands. Their pre-sentence custody of nearly two years will be deducted from their total sentence, leaving them to serve the remaining four years and two days.

In her final remarks, the judge highlighted that the men's desire for financial gain drove them to commit the serious crime of kidnapping workers from the Moran Oil Field.

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