The million dollar fraud trial of the former permanent secretary for the Ministry of Infrastructure Development (MID) Henry Murray and his wife Rose has now come to an end.
It is now reaching the closing submissions stage.
Prosecution and the Defence counsels are directed to file in their written closing submissions by Wednesday this week.
They are then directed to appear personally in the Honiara Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.
This is so that they can answer any questions Chief Magistrate Emma Garo has or raised if she had any in relation to the closing submissions.
The trial ended after the defence closed its case following the sworn evidence by Murray.
Rose did not stage any defence and chose to remain silent.
Prosecution on the other hand had called a total of 31 witnesses.
Henry is standing trial for 14 counts of official corruption while his wife is standing trial for 16 counts of false pretences.
These were for allegedly defrauding the government of more than $1million between April 2014 and April 2017.
They were both arrested by the anti-corruption task force JANUS.
The Murrays were charged in relation to a company they allegedly set up in 2014, when Murray was employed as the Director of Mechanical Engineering Division which received $1,151,850 of public funds by Murray.
Murray was then appointed as Permanent Secretary on 31 August 2015 when he allegedly signed the agreement of Service as PS of MID with the Solomon Islands Government.
Prosecution alleged they registered the Krash Transport & Marketing as a business with the Company Haus on 11 February 2014.
They then allegedly opened an ANZ bank account to which they were both signatories.
It was alleged that on 15 August 2014, the defendant and his wife registered the business entity Krash Transport and Marketing with the Inland Revenue Division (IRD) of the Ministry of Finance & Treasury (MoFT) for tax purposes.
Between April 2014 and May 2017, it was alleged Krash Transport and Marketing have entered into agreements with the Ministry of Infrastructure Development.
These agreements as alleged have been for the hire of motor vehicles for personnel of the Ministry of Infrastructure Development, including the Permanent Secretary Murray himself.
Police alleged that the Ministry of Finance and Treasury, through the Ministry of Infrastructure Development, has made payments of more than $1million to Krash Transport and Marketing for motor vehicle hires.
These payments, which were allegedly made through cheques and electronic funds transfers, were deposited into their ANZ account in the name of Krash Transport and Marketing.
The L & L Lawyers is representing Murray and his wife while Public Prosecutor Florence Joel is appearing for the Crown.
Assisting Ms Joel is her colleague Dalcy Belapitu.
By ASSUMPTA BUCHANAN
