By RNZ A former deputy prime minister of the Cook Islands and two others in his administration have been sent to prison for a range of fraud charges. The.
The former deputy prime minister and two former senior civil servants have been handed prison sentences for fraudulently using $70,000 in public funds.
In his first statement since the result of the court case in which Robert Tapaitau, Nga Puna and Puna’s wife, Diane Charlie-Puna, the former secretary of Infrastructure Cook Islands, were found guilty of fraud, Prime Minister Mark Brown said “no person is above the law”.