A witness has claimed former Electoral Commissioner, Afualo Daryl Mapu, is innocent of all charges against him, testifying in Court that he owns the drugs, utensils, illegal guns and even the shorts worn by the accused at the time of his arrest by police following a raid of a Nuu-Fou property in December last year.
During the widely publicised two-week long trial of Samoa’s former Assistant Electoral Commissioner, defense counsel Magele Leone Su’a-Mailo told prosecution witnesses that a man by the name of Pelepesite was going to testify that it was his room that police raided.
In Court this week, the long awaited testimony of Pelepesite Ta’ua Pelepesite was heard before Justice Tafaoimalo Tologata Leilani Tuala-Warren.
Before the witness continued with his testimony, 30 year old Pelepesite was asked if he understood that he could be incriminated by his testimony.
The witness said yes, a private lawyer, Mr Quentin Sauaga, had already warned him that police could charge him based on his evidence. “But what I will testify is the truth,” he said.
“Ou le’a ou molimau ma le faamaoni.”
Pelepesite told the Court that he lives upstairs Afualo’s home, and on the day of the raid, the 28th of December, Afualo asked to use his room with Ms Fanueli.
According to Pelepesite, the room in which the guns were found under the mattress of the room. The utensils on a table and even the drugs found in the black shorts Afualo was wearing, all belonged to him.
Defense put to the Court that Afualo had put the shorts on when the police arrived. In the pocket of the shorts was a bag containing methamphetamine.
Pelepesite did not hold back. He told the Court that he “pushed ice for a man named Viliamu from Vaitele”.
When asked by Justice Tuala-Warren where he got the guns from the witness answered..
“The 9mm that was on the bed is from a man named Saili who fixes bikes (lea e fai pasika), the 22 is from a man named Fotu from Faleatiu and the other gun is from Fono from Aleisa..”
According to Pelepesite, the guns are received in return for drugs when buyers are short of cash.
Lead Prosector from the AGs office, Iliganoa Atoa, put it to Pelepesite that his story was fiction. Ms Atoa put to the witness that he had collaborated this story with Afualo during a time he had shared a cell block with the accused in January this year.
Afualo Daryl Mapu was arrested on the 28th of December 2021. Pelepesite confirmed to the Court that on the 24th of January while the accused was still in custody, he was arrested and was held in Cell No2, the same one Afualo was in.
