PNG fraud squad under close watch by police hierarchy

Transcript

Detectives working for Papua New Guinea's police fraud squad have been allowed access to their office and files again, but under tight conditions.

PNG's police commissioner Gary Baki had locked the fraud squad out of its office after the detectives made a series of high profile arrests linked to a major fraud case implicating the Prime Minister Peter O'Neill.

Johnny Blades has more.

Heat started piling on the fraud squad last month recently as it appeared to be zeroing in on the prime minister.

An arrest warrant was secured in 2014, but fraud detectives remain stayed from arresting Peter O'Neill on that charge by a judicial review still before the courts.

Last month, Gary Baki suspended fraud squad head Mathew Damaru and his colleagues for alleged procedural breaches.

While the suspension was stayed by the courts, Mr Baki still refused to reopen the fraud office.

Last week however he was asked by the national court to allow the squad to get back to work and has complied.

Deputy Police Commissioner Operations, Jim Andrews told local media that from now on, the fraud squad has been directed to present all high-profile cases to a vetting committee before arrests can be made.

"And the vetting committee will go through a file and if they're satisfied that the evidence is there, the file will come back straight to the Assistant Commissioner Crimes to the director of fraud (squad) to go ahead with the case. Members of the vetting committee will comprise of the Deputy Commissioner Operations, Deputy Commissioner Administration, Assistant Commissioner of Crimes and others plus the Deputy Public Prosecutor."

Matthew Damaru appeared to be half-joking when he likened having to go through the committee with himself standing trial.

But after the disruption to a range of fraud investigations, he was happy to be able to resume work.

"We are back to office, back at work. But with the new process in place, we don't know practically how it will work. We'll just wait and see how it will go. And then over a period of time, I think we'll probably reassess and see whether it's working or it's not working."

Mathew Damaru's lawyer McRonald Nale last week filed contempt of court proceedings against Gary Baki, and feels that the Commissioner reopened the fraud squad office for fear of being in contempt.

Mr Nale says the vetting committee condition is suspicious

"Now you're actually discriminating against citizens. The law should apply to everyone but now you say you have a vetting committee for high-profile (cases), so how do you define the word high-profile? The public prosecutor's an independent office, the police men are independent, so why do you have to pretend to vet? It's unconstitutional to have a thing like that. A policeman should be trained properly to be able to make that assessment, whether it is to arrest a person or not."

Meanwhile, Matthew Damaru says he doesn't think the alleged fraud case involving Mr O'Neill needs to be vetted.

"For that one, I think we've gone past that. we've already made arrests and warrants of arrest have been obtained, so we've already gone past that, so I don't think that will be one of the cases that goes through that process."

The commissioner's office appears to have dropped the matter of trying to suspend the fraud squad, for now.

But Mr Baki has warned against what he calls "covert investigations using outside funding and has directed fraud detectives to strictly adhere to procedure.