PORT MORESBY (Pacnews) — The Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea Sir Michael Somare has moved to restore public confidence in the country’s police force after months of infighting and instability.
Competition for the vacant police commissioner’s role has led to a split in the force. Officers from both sides have wrestled and pointed guns at each other to clear the path for their man to take the top job.
Last week the government installed Gari Baki as PNG’s police commissioner but officers protesting the appointment arrested him on his first day and Sir Michael confirmed Baki as PNG’s Police Commissioner.
Baki was PNG’s assistant police commissioner.
“It’s a personal vendetta, a witch-hunt and I want that witch-hunt to be stopped. “I told the new commissioner this morning, ‘you take command and do your job,” Sir Michael said.
Meanwhile, Sir Michael has ruled out appearing before an inquiry into the escape of fugitive Australian Julian Moti to the Solomon Islands aboard a PNG military flight.
Sir Michael said he stood by earlier statements that neither he nor his Cabinet gave any orders to shift the lawyer out of the country at a time when Australia was seeking his extradition.
“I am not aware of who gave orders,” Sir Michael told reporters in Port Moresby.
He said he had made his position clear and it was not necessary for him, as prime minister, or for government ministers to appear before the current PNG Defense Force board of inquiry into Moti’s escape.
Counsel assisting the inquiry John Kawi on Friday invited Somare to appear or at least provide a statement. On October 10 last year, Moti was whisked from Port Moresby on a PNG military aircraft to an island airstrip in the Solomons.
Moti, who remains suspended from his appointment as the Solomon Islands attorney-general, had been hiding for a week in the Solomons High Commission in the PNG capital, evading Australia’s efforts to extradite him on child sex charges dating back to 1997.
He was arrested soon after his arrival in the Solomons but has since had illegal entry charges against him dropped.
Somare said Australian authorities had the right to arrest Moti and again questioned why they failed to do so when Moti passed through Australia in recent years.
“I’ve made my position very clear in parliament. Parliament has accepted my report, it’s a dead issue.”
But Somare agreed it was important for Papua New Guineans to learn who gave the orders for Moti’s flight. That might be revealed by the defense board of inquiry, Somare said.