Belden Namah

Belden Namah is a Papua New Guinean politician and former military officer.

In the 1990s, he was an officer in the Papua New Guinea Defence Force, with the rank of captain. He was involved in the aftermath of the Sandline affair in 1997. In July, he and three other soldiers accompanied Captain Bola Renagi to see newly appointed Prime Minister Bill Skate, following Prime Minister Julius Chan's resignation under military pressure over the use of mercenaries in the conflict in Bougainville province. Renagi asked Skate to disband the Special Operations Group, to which the military was hostile. Namah, Renagi and the three other men were arrested and charged with sedition for their approach to the Prime Minister; the public prosecution argued that they had been attempting to obtain a pardon from the government for the military personnel involved in the near-coup of the Sandline affair. He was tried, convicted and jailed with his fellow officers in late 1997. He was paroled in 2003.

Before entering politics, he was also a businessman, describing himself as being "into the multi-billion-dollar business of logging".

As MP for Vanimo-Green in the Eighth National Parliament (2007-2012), he served for a time as Minister for Forestry under Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare.

In 2009, it emerged that he had bought "prime properties, worth more than K4 million", in Samoa. Namah "initially denied the story, but after the Samoan Central Bank announced it was launching an inquiry into possible money laundering offenses, he admitted making the purchases", saying he had done so for "business associates".

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