Aro

Who is Aro?

Aro was the last person executed in Papua New Guinea.

In 1957, while Papua New Guinea was an Australian territory, Aro, then a young man, walked into a hospital "carrying a baby and a blood-stained axe" and stated that he had killed his two wives.

He was convicted of willful murder, sentenced to death, and executed by hanging in November 1957.

There were no further executions. The death penalty was abolished in 1970, five years before Papua New Guinea's independence from Australia. It was reintroduced in 1991, but never applied.