Police still investigating last year’s poll violence in SHP, Enga

A police detectives will return to Southern Highlands and Enga to continue investigating last year’s national election-related violence, says polices acting crimes assistant commissioner Hodges Ette.
“Now that the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation security operations are over, the police team will also include members of the mobile squad and continue the investigations from where we had stopped,” Ette said.
Ette provided an update into investigations related to the death of two police officers near Mendi and the burning of a Dash 8 plane there on June 14.
“We have completed the investigation into the burning down of the Link PNG DHC 8 aircraft in Mendi, the court house and Governor William Powi’s house.
“We identified more than100 suspects. But most fled when the team went there to investigate.
“We managed to arrest only 14 and they are going through the court process in Goroka, Eastern Highlands. We have already served them their court files. But we expect to make more arrest when we return to Mendi. We have also completed the investigations into the killing of the two police officers at Wara Anga. We have identified the suspects and will make arrests when we return.”
However, Ette said they had not completed investigations into the killing of two police officers in Wabag.
“We need to go back and pick up from where we have left of our investigations into these three cases.”
Ette said that they had to withdraw from these provinces to join the Apec forces.