Mr Mori, who held a BSc in Geology and was first elected in 2012, was Minister for Environment Conservation and Climate Change when he was dropped by prime minister James Marape in April 2022 after he quit the governing Pangu Party.

I met him in 2017, a short and jovial man who was more interested in talking about colonial days and his schooling at Chuave under the mentorship of the late Murray Bladwell.

The two later communicated regularly until Bladwell’s sudden death four years ago.

In their grief, Mori's tribesmen went on a destructive rampage in the Chuave area

“We Simbus have come a long way,” he wrote in Facebook in March last year. “It is about time we were no longer there [in Parliament] just to make up the numbers nor taken for a ride.

“We Simbus like to talk good to make others feel good and we champion causes for others, but we are an enemy amongst our good selves and never form an alliance.

 “Sometimes I wonder why we focus on national issues that have no bearing on Simbu.

“Let us open our eyes and see what's happening in the upper highlands provinces where they are building cities and sealed super highways whilst we have shanties and squatters around Kundiawa, Goroka, Kainantu and Banz.

“Whilst PNG is run by half-baked people who print their own qualifications, many of our own Simbus walk the streets despite their reputable qualifications.”

“These are some of the reasons why I left Pangu to join the Country Party.”

In June this year, Wera Mori had been committed to stand trial in PNG’s national court on corruption charges .