THE three men who escaped from the Rove prison last December will appear in the Honiara Magistrate’s Court on Friday.
This is for the court to hear supplementary submissions on some issues regarding the sentencing submissions on the case of the three accused.
Frank Firimolea, Dilo Faiga, and Willie Olo will be sentenced after pleading guilty to the charge of escaping lawful custody.
Their matter was previously heard before Chief Magistrate Emma Garo but when the matter came for sentencing, she disqualified herself.
This was because she found out that she was related to one of the accused through adoption and therefore had to disqualify herself.
The matter was then transferred to Principal Magistrate Felix Hollison.
Hollison however sought supplementary submissions from the prosecution and the defence after noticing some issues for the sentencing submissions were not covered.
The trio escaped from the Correctional facility at Rove, Honiara on 15 December 2019.
They climbed over the heavily barbed wire security fence at the southern side towards the Honiara Botanical garden sometimes between 6pm and 9pm and escaped.
Soon after their escape, police set up a task force called “Operation Hunt-Man” to hunt down these three escapees.
Convicted prisoner Willie Olo was the first to be recaptured in the early hours of January 17 at the LDA area at Betikama, East of Honiara.
Firimolea and Faiga were recaptured on February 15 in a RAV4 vehicle along the Burns Creek main road.
Olo was convicted and sentenced to three years imprisonment on 9 December 2019 for an armed robbery incident on 23 August 2019 in Honiara.
Faiga and Firimolea were remanded for separate armed robbery charges.
Apart from the armed robbery charge, Firimolea is also facing separate break-in charges.
Lawyers from the Public Solicitor’s lawyers are representing the trio while Public Prosecutor Olivia Ratu Manu is prosecuting.
By ASSUMPTA BUCHANAN
