The landowner trustees of Abarafi Ano customary land have accused officers of the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force (RSIPF) Auki of unlawful arrest.
A representative of the Abrafi Ano raised a complaint through the local media stating that Auki RSIPF officers have unlawfully arrested two of their representatives and locked them up for 24 hours on 14 November 2020.
“No legal documents such as contempt of high court order were presented,” the spokesperson claimed.
“Despite having no legal document being presented, we were locked up for 24 hours without knowing what we did wrong.”
One of those who were locked up confirmed that the officers did not take any statement from them before locking them up.
When the Malaita Provincial Police Commander (PPC) Stanley Riolo was called to explain the police side of the story, he said there is an ongoing issue relating to the current logging operation in the Abarafi customary land.
Mr.Riolo has confirmed that there is a court order relating to the issue of trespassing and said police are aware of issues surrounding logging operation in the said customary land.
With the issue of the claims of an unlawful lock up, the PPC said those two were brought in for questioning regarding the ongoing unsolved issue relating to logging operation on the Abarafi customary land.
He said the two people brought to Auki police station were aggressive and are not cooperative with the police and said the claim that they were locked up for 24 hours is not true.
He said police only locked these two up for less than 10 minutes but were later released after questioning.
By WILSON SAENI
Auki News Bureau
