The Solomon Islands Prime Minister, Manasseh Sogavare, says he expects Australian lawyer Julian Moti to be made attorney-general this month despite him being wanted by Australia to face child sex charges.
Mr Sogavare says Mr Moti is the best man for the job and he could help clear up injustices against more than 200 Solomon Islanders, who he says are unjustly detained in jail through the efforts of the regional assistance mission, or RAMSI.
The opposition leader, Fred Fono, has meanwhile repeated his call for Mr Moti to be returned to Australia to face charges that he raped a 13-year-old girl in Vanuatu in 1997.
Mr Moti evaded extradition to Australia from Papua New Guinea last October by skipping bail, hiding out in the Solomons High Commission in Port Moresby for a week, then taking a clandestine PNG military flight to the Solomons.
Those events have soured Canberra's relations with PNG and the Solomons.
The Australian-trained lawyer of Fijian-Indian background is now staying at a Honiara hotel with his expenses and a car paid for by the Solomons government.
Mr Fono says this arrangement amount to a burden on the country.
