The High Court has allowed an appeal against sentence for a man convicted of aggravated robbery, reducing his three-year prison term after finding the lower court did not consider his time spent on remand.
The judgment was delivered by Justice Lee James Burney earlier this month.
Meli Kisoko was originally convicted in April 2025, following a trial before a magistrate in Labasa. The conviction was for aggravated robbery, stemming from a “very nasty home-invasion robbery” that resulted in serious injuries to an elderly homeowner.
On July 21, 2025, Kisoko was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 18 months.
Kisoko appealed the sentence on the sole ground that the magistrate erred in law by failing to consider his time spent in custody pending disposal as time already served.
Defence argued that Kisoko had spent six months on remand from August 26, 2019, to February 26, 2020, and noted the mandatory requirement for courts to credit pre-trial custody.
Justice Burney ruled that it was a plain error of law for the remand period not to have been expressly considered, noting it was likely the magistrate was simply not informed of the 2019 custody period.
He quashed the original sentence and substituted it with a sentence of 30 months’ imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 12 months, effective from July 21, 2025.
