Alleged child sex offender Julian Moti has been arrested by Australian federal police after his deportation from the Solomon Islands.
The Australian lawyer was deported from Honiara yesterday after being sacked as the Solomon Islands attorney-general last weekend by new prime minister Derek Sikua.
Australian federal police arrested Moti, 42, at Brisbane international Airport soon after he arrived on a Solomons Airlines flight and charged him with engaging in sexual intercourse with a person under 16.
The charges relate to the alleged rape of a 13-year-old girl in Vanuatu in 1997.
Moti was handed over to Queensland police who took him away in a car.
He is expected to face Brisbane Magistrates Court this morning.
The Fiji-born lawyer denies the charges, saying they were dismissed in a Vanuatu court and revived by Australian authorities to prevent him becoming attorney-general.
Supporters rallied around him at his house in Honiara earlier today, confronting police and immigration officers in a bid to stop him being detained.
The flight was delayed for an hour and a quarter until Moti finally arrived under heavy police escort.
Moti has been protected in the Solomons by his friend Manasseh Sogavare, who was prime minister until earlier this month when he was ousted in a parliamentary no-confidence vote.
The new Sikua government quickly moved to finalise Moti’s deportation and is keen to improve relations with Canberra, which were severely strained under Sogavare.
A last-ditch legal bid to stop Moti’s deportation failed when Immigration Department legal advisers dismissed a magistrate’s stay of proceedings in the Moti case as flawed.
When Solomons immigration officers and police arrived at Moti’s Honiara house today, they had to break open a padlocked gate then confront angry lawyers and supporters of Moti.
Solomons deputy police commissioner Peter Marshall, a New Zealander, told AAP that a long discussion followed over the legality of Moti’s deportation.
“There was a lot of hot air and legalistic argument. Perhaps the immigration officers would have been better advised not to enter into it.
“He (Moti) was eventually persuaded to comply with the order.”
Moti was taken in a police convoy with sirens wailing to the waiting airliner.
Wearing a blue shirt and dark trousers, not handcuffed and carrying no luggage, he appeared calm as he was escorted to the aircraft steps, talking to Marshall on the way.
Marshall later said Moti asked him to look after his parents who had arrived from Fiji to spend Christmas with him.
“I assured him I would as best as I could,” Marshall said.At the airport, one of Moti’s lawyers told reporters there was little use commenting as “the laws have already been breached”.
Moti escaped extradition from Papua New Guinea to Australia in October last year when he skipped bail after being arrested while in transit to the Solomons.
He hid in the Solomons High Commission in Port Moresby before being whisked away on a PNG military flight to the Solomons.
His escape flight soured Canberra’s relations with PNG’s Prime Minister Michael Somare, who denied sanctioning the flight, though a PNG Defence Force inquiry found he ordered it.
Earlier this week, the PNG government banned Moti from returning to PNG, indicating Somare wanted no more trouble over the fugitive lawyer. – AAP