IT____S against the law to assault someone being suspected of practising sorcery because its a criminal offense under our law.
Therefore the public is being warned to refrain from assaulting people suspect of practicing sorcery on others or the law will punish them.
Speaking to the Solomon Star Secretary to the Law Reform Commission (LRC) Phillip Kanairara urged the public not to assault any person suspect of witchcraft, but rather encouraging them to lodge reports to the police with evidence.
This came after a man was assaulted which led to his death over the Easter weekend at the Guadalcanal Plains area.
He said taking another person’s life is against the law, thus any allegation of death, illness or misery which is blamed on sorcery must be reported to the police with evidences for the court to deal with.
“There is an existing law that addresses sorcery offenses, but that has to be proven in court, which complainant or the victim of sorcery allegation have to report such matter to the police to deal with, rather than taking the laws in their own hands.”
Kanairara said in the rumour over the recent incident at Guadalcanal Plain last Easter, in which an elderly man was murdered for allegation of sorcery and claims that the deceased’s bag contains some sacred items believed to be associated with black magic, should be kept for court purposes.
However, he said since the person was beaten to death police will treat the matter as a homicide case and the perpetrator will have to face the full consequence of taking away another man’s life.
Mr Kainairara said the matter should have been reported to the police while the suspect was still alive, so that things could be taken to court with evidences.
He added that court will see the case as murder since the suspect is dead, thus it will depend on the lawyer defending the killer to persuade the court to consider the allegation of sorcery, which was the motive of the action.
The LRC Secretary cautioned that allegations related to sorcery is quite difficult to deal with and this problem is also face by other Melanesian countries like Papua New Guinea (PNG).
“We cannot based our allegations on claims by Tasiu (Melanesian brotherhood) or someone’s night dream to blame others for practising sorcery to spoil another man or woman.”
Reiterating that this cannot be proven in court and should not be practice to the extent of assault, murder or arson as common in the communities of Solomon Islands.
By AATAI JOHN
