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Fiji’s High Court has given a sex worker a two-year suspended sentenced for the manslaughter of her de-facto partner.
Assessors were unanimous in finding Mereoni Koroi, 35, guilty of manslaughter and not murder.
Koroi stabbed Savenaca Cavalevu in the chest with a kitchen knife in their rented room at Suva’s Kings Hotel on November 18, 2008.
The court heard that Cavalevu had passed degrading comments at Koroi and wanted her to perform sexual acts with her girlfriends which provoked Koroi.
Judge Justice Daniel Goundar in handing down sentence said that the abuse, humiliation and exploitation that Koroi faced at the hands of Cavalevu was not only a form of provocation but an injustice to her.
Given the nature of the attack on the victim, Justice Goundar started from four years imprisonment and reduced the sentence due to Koroi’s cooperation with the police.
Justice Goundar sentenced Koroi to two years imprisonment suspended for two years and warned the sentence would be re-activated if she re-offended in the next two years.
