An insurer has allegedly denied a payout for the aircraft leased by Lulutai Airlines, which had crashed at Fua’amotu Airport in December 2023
Lulutai Airline Saab 340 aircraft that slid off the runway at Tonga’s Fua’amotu airport on Friday. 8 December 2023. Photo / Facebook
The QBE Insurance reportedly maintained that the aircraft could be repaired and would only provide financial compensation if the repairs were carried out as a prerequisite.
The aircraft was heading to the terminal after reportedly experiencing an undesired landing before hitting a cement block on the side of the apron. Following this incident, the plane was rendered inoperative and could not resume normal flight operations.
The Director of the Monte Aircraft Leasing, Tom Frank, told Kaniva News they allegedly owned the Saab 340B aircraft.
He claimed QBE Insurance insured the aircraft since the commencement of the Lulutai lease in July 2020.
Frank said: “We believe that the aircraft is a constructive loss and Lulutai and Monte have been seeking a payout from QBE for most of this year.
“However QBE have refused the payout, claiming that the aircraft is repairable and only offering to pay only a small portion of the insured value.
He said this has caused a huge amount of damage to Tonga’s people, economy, and to Monte’s business.
“Lulutai and we are continuing to press QBE but more than 12 months after the incident there is still no resolution”.
We asked Frank how much Lulutai paid for the lease and whether the airlines is still paying the lease while the aircraft is inoperative. We also asked if we can get a copy of the lease agreement.
He said he could not release this information to us, citing confidentiality.
The revelations follow a recent report by Kaniva News, which raised questions about the aircraft’s insurance status.
The article asked whether the aircraft was indeed insured and, if so, why it had been taking approximately 12 months without any replacement being provided.
In this article, we said we had asked Lulutai CEO Poasi Tei for comment, but he has yet to respond.
The aircraft
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) were in Tongan early last year to assist the Civil Aviation Division’s Chief Investigator’s ongoing investigation of the accident involving the SAAB340 aircraft.
It follows with a report that the Minister for Infrastructure received an update on the status of the Preliminary Report.
As Kaniva News reported previously, the preliminary report showed several mechanical issues the aircraft had experienced, including hydraulic fuel loss and other safety problems.
The report also indicated signs that the aircraft’s flight recorder may have been deliberately disabled.
An unverified video circulating on Facebook has garnered significant attention from the Tongan online community.
‘Esilani Latu
The footage, seen by Kaniva News, purportedly depicted an unsettling incident where one man is seen being overpowered by another while allegedly being coerced into speaking against his will.
In the 10-second video clip, one man appears physically dominating the victim, who seems visibly distressed, resistant and screaming.
An individual is overheard asking questions of the victim, though the content of his words is unclear due to the video’s poor audio quality.
Kaniva News was unable to verify the authenticity of the footage.
The video evoked emotional responses from viewers, prompting speculation about the possible motives behind this act, leading to many theories online.
On the most extreme end, some commenters suggested, without evidence, that the video was purported to show the last moments before a young man from the village of Nakolo died last month.
Police report
That person, according to a previous Police statement, was identified as 21-year-old ‘Esilani Latu of Nakolo.
Latu allegedly died from his injuries, which police had described at the time as being consistent with being struck by a vehicle.
His body was found on Hala Liku Road between Nakolo and Fua’amotu.
The Police statement said a post-mortem report confirmed that the young man was run over by a car.
However, the police were not so sure if this was the cause of death.
They said the report also showed other injuries that may have been inflicted elsewhere.
The deceased was allegedly under the influence of alcohol.
As we reported at the time, a man who identified himself in a live-streamed video as an alleged witness appealed to the public on Facebook.
The live-streamer, who goes by the name Vee Town, urged a vehicle driver, who he believes might be aware of the incident, to come forward.
Vee Town said that he was intoxicated and seated in the back of the vehicle as a passenger when they appeared to have stumbled upon the scene.
Person of interest
Meanwhile, the Police previously said they had identified a person of interest who was driving but had since left for New Zealand.
They confiscated a vehicle that the driver was operating.
The driver, a New Zealand resident, was scheduled to leave for New Zealand on the same day the incident occurred, the Police said.
A Tongan woman has been sentenced to community detention for stealing almost $61,164 from a Waitakere business to fund her planned lavish wedding.
Former Briscoes employee Mele Hala stands before Judge Maria Pecotic in the Waitākere District Court, where she was sentenced this week after pleading guilty to swindling the retail store out of over $62,000 via fake returns. Photo / Craig Kapitan
Mele Hala’s impending marriage led her to commit the crime since 2022.
The court was told Hala had an engagement on New Year’s Day 2022 but her partner then lost his job, putting significant financial pressure on both, according to a report by the New Zealand Herald.
The judge, however, noted that Hala and her fiancé split in April 2023. The offending didn’t stop until she was caught in May 2023.
“The financial pressures on you for your wedding are really no different from others,” the judge said. “How you chose to deal with it is simply inappropriate.”
The court heard that Hala was employed at Briscoes Westgate in a role that involved handling purchase and refund transactions when she started exploiting the position for personal gain in August 2022, reported the Herald.
On 26 separate occasions between then and May the following year she created fraudulent refund transactions – making up names and emails of pretend refund customers then funnelling a total of $61,164 into her own bank account.
When averaged out, that equated to the pilfering of almost $7000 per month before she was caught, the judge noted.
Hala admitted the scheme to her employer and lost her job after the company completed an internal investigation, court documents state. But she declined to make a formal police statement.
She was charged a year later with obtaining by deception.
That charge, along with theft by a person in a special relationship, are among the most common charges for those accused of stealing from their employers. Both carry punishments of up to seven years’ imprisonment.
Defence lawyer Jenny Verry said her client had come to court with $2000 that she was able to use as a lump sum reparation payment before paying a further $100 per week.
“She has made every effort to get rid of every other debt so she can focus on this reparation,” the defence lawyer said, adding that her client had tried to get a loan to cover a larger reparation payment but was unable to obtain it due to the nature of the charges. “She committed to doing that [paying the money back].”
A father who fondled and sucked his daughter’s breasts has been convicted by the Nuku’alofa Supreme Court.
He has permanent name suppression to protect the identity of his daughter.
He pleaded not guilty to two counts of serious indecent assaults.
However, the Lord Chief Justice Malcolm Bishop said he had no doubt the defendant committed the crimes against her daughter’s consent.
The court heard the complainant stated that on one occasion during the summer, the Defendant returned from a session of drinking Kava and returned to their property while the complainant was asleep.
They shared the same bed.
She woke up to find the defendant “massaging both my breasts” and sucking them.
“He then pulled down my shirt and slept next to me,” read the court document.
She said she kept quiet because she was afraid.
The defendant claimed that these allegations were made up because of a disagreement between himself and the complainant about how she should conduct her life.
He also alleged that the allegations against him were engineered by his estranged wife, who was jealous of his new partner.
He said he wanted the complainant to return to school and give up the inappropriate relationship she was having with her boyfriend and others.
The Lord Chief Justice did not buy it, saying he trusted that the young girl was honest and straightforward.
“She did not exaggerate, she accepted that she had shown affection to the complainant her father. She did not excuse her behaviour about not going to school, about absconding and going to live with her boyfriend, nor was her evidence in my judgement animated by anything other than a resigned acceptance that she must tell the truth. This is what in my view she did”, Mr Bishop said.
He found the defendant guilty of both counts of serious indecent assaults.
“I further order that nothing which leads to the identity of the complainant must be published and any report of these proceedings must anonymise all parties so that the identity of the complainant is protected pursuant to s119 of the Criminal Offences Act”.
The Kremlin said Friday that it welcomed the president-elect’s willingness to talk and that there would likely be progress on the subject after he is sworn in later this month.
President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet in Finland in 2018. Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP file
President-elect Donald Trump said late Thursday that a meeting is being arranged with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, a summit that would be eyed anxiously by Ukraine and its other Western allies.
“President Putin wants to meet” and “we are setting it up,” Trump told a news briefing at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. “We have to get that war over with. That’s a bloody mess.”
Trump has previously suggested he would seek to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, now approaching the three-year mark, within 24 hours of assuming office.
Russia says it is open to to dialogue and diplomacy — although critics say that in reality its proposals amount to little more than a Ukrainian surrender.
“President Putin has repeatedly stated his openness to contacts with international leaders, including the U.S. president, including with Donald Trump,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday. “No conditions are required for this, what is required is a mutual desire and political will to conduct a dialogue.”
Peskov said Trump’s overtures were “welcome” but added there were “no specifics” on dates. “After Mr. Trump assumes office, there will be some developments.”
Ukraine knows that while many inside the country are alarmed at Trump’s stance, its relationship with the White House is nonetheless essential in its territorial future and sovereignty.
It said Friday it was “waiting for a meeting between our presidents because for us the main thing is to work together with America,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi told reporters in Kyiv. It said it was “preparing for contacts at the highest and high levels immediately after the inauguration.”
A military-themed mural decorates the wall of a residential building in the town of Petushki, Russia on Friday.Natalia Kolesnikova / AFP via Getty Images
While Ukraine would be unlikely to criticize Trump directly, its officials have chided other world leaders for engaging with Putin. “Conversations with the Russian dictator as such do not add any value to the pursuit of a just peace,” Tykhyi posted to X in November, referring to a call between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the the Russian leader.
Many in Europe worry Putin could then turn his ambitions to other former Soviet countries, particularly given Trump’s previous record of undermining the NATO alliance under which these Westernized states have been historically protected.
“We want peace, but peace through strength,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in a speech last month.
Kyiv is currently suffering battlefield setbacks as Russian troops steadily advance through the frozen fields of its eastern heartlands, with Moscow claiming to have captured the front-line town of Kurakhove this week.
Russian servicemen fire rockets towards Ukrainian positions near Lyman on Dec. 25.Stanislav Krasilnikov / Sputnik via AP
Trump has more recently relaxed his 24-hour ambitions, saying earlier this week that he hoped to have the conflict solved within “six months.” Keith Kellogg, his appointee for special envoy in the war, separately set the goal of “100 days.”
Still, this is a far remove the strategy of President Joe Biden, who has met Putin only once while in office, at a June 2021 summit in Geneva, otherwise describing him as “a killer” and a “dictator.”
Biden has overseen some $170 billion in aid for Ukraine, telling his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, this summer that “we will be with Ukraine until they prevail in this war.”
Zelenskyy says he is grateful for this support, but he and other officials have complained that some of the military aid has been too slow and too little. Trump has suggested it is too much.
Zelenskyy acknowledged Thursday that a “new chapter” was about to begin under Trump, and urged Western allies “not to drop the ball” on supporting Ukraine as a bulwark against Moscow.
A Tongatapu man who inappropriately touched a girl has been given a suspended sentence.
Siaosi Fatafehi, 41, was at the complainant’s home, where she was in the kitchen alone with her cousin.
Fatafehi walked up and stood next to her, stoked her left buttock, and then walked out of the kitchen, causing her to be scared at the time.
The court document said that his case was serious because he was 41 years old, and the complainant was 13.
“You have expressed remorse by apologising to the family and making payment to the family, which has been accepted”, the judgement said.
Sentencing, the Lord Chief Justice said: “I make it clear that no one in this Court can buy their way out of prison, but I accept that what you did was not with that in mind but to expiate what you had done:.
For one count of serious indecent assault, the Lord Chief Justice imposed a sentence of six months imprisonment fully suspended on the following conditions:
a. He must report to the Probation Office within 48 hours from today.
b. He must not commit any further offence punishable by imprisonment during your suspension period.
c. He must complete 40 hours of community service within 12 months.
d. He must complete a course on sexual awareness by the Salvation Army at the direction of the Probation Office.
The appeal following the sentencing related to the overpriced goods in Ha‘apai has been dismissed.
The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by Song Ning Wang, who was sentenced to imprisonment for inflating the price of goods in his shop in Ha’apai.
Wang argued that his sentence was manifestly excessive, but it was rejected.
The court document showed that Wang appeared before the Magistrates Court, where he faced 25 summons under the Price and Wages Control Act. He pleaded guilty.
The allegation was that he charged in excess for items that are price-controlled and so had inflated the cost of those goods.
This was obviously done just for profit.
The Learned Magistrate sentenced Mr Wang to a fine of $2,000.00 and three months imprisonment, the last two months had been suspended for two years.
The defence appealed the sentence and submitted the followings:
That the sentence was manifestly excessive and he was a first-time offender.
That this was a “purely property offence” that merited a non-custodial term and that his guilty plea was not sufficiently taken into account.
If prison was appropriate, then the two weeks he has served is sufficient.
The Magistrate failed to take into account all the relevant factors or took into account irrelevant factors.
They contended that assumptions were made as to past dealings.
They argued that this sentence was inconsistent with the sentences generally imposed for such offences.
They said that in Police v Chen Hengquan CR 118/2023 a fine of $80.00 was imposed on that defendant.
The Crown opposed the appeal on all grounds that this was an offence where the extent of the deception on the public was hidden by the failure to keep records.
They said the items in question are ring-fenced with a maximum price, presumably as they represent basic household items.
The shop in question was in Ha’apai, a small community that does not have a wide range of shops, in fact quite the opposite, it has a very limited range.
Therefore, these offences resonate in a much more serious way.
It appears the Learned Magistrate believed that the public needed to be protected from this type of “price-gouging”, especially a small community dependent on a very limited array of retail establishments. He was perfectly within his rights to form such a view.
It stands to reason that Mr Wang had been doing this over a length of time; it plainly had not taken place that same day he was caught, the judgement said.
By the fact that so many goods were overpriced, it quite clearly was a concerted effort to commit fraud on the public.
It is axiomatic that it was just to profit Mr. Wang.
It might be thought by some this was a severe sentence, imposing a custodial term, the judge said.
“Therefore, it appears to me the Learned Magistrate was entitled to view this offending as requiring both punishment and denunciation. He plainly also had in mind all the mitigating factors too”, Justice Nicholas Cooper said.
“Accordingly, I reject the defence submissions”, he also said.
“The sentence of the Learned Magistrate is upheld.
Mr. Wang’s appeal is dismissed; he will also have to pay the costs”.
(CBS) Appearing in court virtually from his Mar-a-Lago home Friday, President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced for his crimes in the New York “hush money” case and released with no restrictions.
Justice Juan Merchan followed through on a promise made one week ago to give Trump a sentence of unconditional discharge, which includes neither jail time nor any other restriction that might impede Trump after his inauguration on Jan. 20.
Merchan said during sentencing Friday that he was granting that sentence because he believed it was the only legal option, just 10 days before Trump assumes the presidency.
He told the court that “this has been a truly extraordinary case,” even though once the courtroom doors closed, the trial itself had been no more special or unique or extraordinary than any other.
However, he told Trump, the same could not be said about the circumstances surrounding the president-elect’s sentencing “because of the office you once occupied and will soon occupy again.” He said that it was the legal protections afforded to the office of the president that were extraordinary, “not the occupant of the office.”
Those legal protections afforded by the office of the chief executive, were a factor that overrode all others, Merchan said, but they were not a mitigating factor. He said they did not reduce the seriousness of the crimes, and even those considerable protections did not have the power to erase a jury verdict.
Merchan said he determined that the only lawful sentence he could give, without encroaching on the highest post in the land, was an unconditional discharge.
Donald Trump, the civilian, he said, might not have gotten so lenient a sentence.
President-elect Donald Trump, right, and Todd Blanche, attorney for Donald Trump, appear virtually at Manhattan criminal court in New York, US, on Friday, Jan. 10, 2025. Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images
In the courtroom, Trump and attorney Todd Blanche — who has also been tapped by the president-elect to serve as deputy attorney general — could be seen on a screen at the defense and prosecutors’ table sitting next to each other, with two American flags visible behind them, in a room with dark wooden walls.
Trump was given the opportunity to address the court. He called the trial “a very terrible experience” and “a tremendous setback for New York.”
“With all the horrible things that are going on, I got indicted for calling a legal expense a legal expense,” Trump said, referring to the falsified reimbursements to a former lawyer, for a “hush money” payment at the core of the case.
“It’s been a political witch hunt,” Trump said on camera. “It was done to damage my reputation so that I’d lose the election, and obviously, that didn’t work.”
“The fact is i’m totally innocent,” Trump said. “I did nothing wrong.”
Ahead of sentencing, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said Trump’s actions in attacking the judicial system and prosecutors in this case “constitutes a direct attack on the rule of law itself.”
“Far from expressing any kind of remorse for his criminal conduct, the defendant has purposefully bred disdain for our judicial institutions and the rule of law, and he’s done this to serve his own ends, and to encourage others to reject the jury verdict that he finds so distasteful,” Steinglass said.
“Put simply, this defendant has caused enduring damage to public perception of the criminal justice system, and has placed officers of the court in harm’s way,” Steinglass said.
Blanche said that he strongly disagreed with Steinglass’ assessment of the case and Trump’s conduct. He told the court that it was not just Trump and experts cited by Trump who felt the case should not have been brought, but the majority of the American people, referring to those who voted for the Republican in November.
At every turn, Trump and his lawyers have fought Manhattan prosecutors since the beginning of the “hush money” investigation in 2018. They challenged prosecutors’ subpoenas and rulings by Merchan, battling all the way to the Supreme Court multiple times, including an effort this week to stave off Friday’s hearing.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court said it would not intervene on Trump’s behalf, clearing the way for Merchan to issue his decision. Trump soon after the high court’s decision said he had read it and “thought it was a fair decision, actually,” noting the Supreme Court justices pointed out he could appeal and that there would be “really…no penalty.”
“But we’re going to appeal anyway,” he added in his remarks Thursday night. “So, I’ll do my little thing tomorrow. They can have fun with their political opponent,” Trump said.
Although there are no cameras in the courtroom, an audio recording of the proceedings will be released after the hearing concludes.
While Trump’s trial and arraignment brought crowds and overnight lines, on Friday morning, the general public line was sparse and no onlookers in the park across the street were visible before dawn.
Trump was found guilty in May after a seven-week trial. A unanimous jury concluded he committed 34 felonies in authorizing a scheme in 2017 to falsify records, in order to cover up reimbursements for a “hush money” payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Daniels testified during the trial, as did Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen, who received the falsified reimbursements for his wire to Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election. Cohen gave Daniels the $130,000 payment in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.
Multiple witnesses testified that Trump was pleased voters did not learn of Daniels’ story before the 2016 election.
Merchan held Trump in contempt 10 times during the trial for violations of a gag order barring him from making public comments about witnesses, court staff and others. In issuing the 10th contempt citation, Merchan — who frequently acknowledged the unique circumstances of the trial and its famed, powerful defendant — foreshadowed Friday’s likely sentence.
“The last thing I want to do is to put you in jail,” Merchan said.
