Senior policeman tries to stop deportation

 A SENIOR police officer is preventing members of the Task Force Rausim Alien from performing their work, it was claimed yesterday.

Task force team leader John Bria said the officer entered the international departure lounge at Jackson Airport to interfere with Immigration officers who were trying to remove a Chinese man for an alleged immigration breach.

He said the officer was fully armed and breached airport security by entering the departure area and bypassing the weapons and metal detectors.

Bria said the deportation of the Chinese man was signed by Foreign Affairs and Immigration Minister Rimbink Pato but the police officer insisted that the man be set free. Bria claimed the officer was a business partner of the Chinese man.

“The police officer used his rank to call on officers at police headquarters to go to the international airport and assist him but the task force people, acting on directives from the minister and the Director of the Special Services Division, Task Force Alien police and immigration officials prevented the police officer and two other officers from entering the airport premises,” Bria said.

The incident was reported to NCD metropolitan commander Supt Andy Bawa who instructed that the police officer be removed from the airport premises.

This led to a confrontation during which a policeman accompanying the officer was manhandled and removed.

Bria said he was willing to supply the names of the officers involved and that this was not the first time this had happened.