Vanuatu aid in doubt after NZ judge gets death threat
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New Zealand could review its aid to Vanuatu, after one of its judges received a death threat while investigating the murder of a prisoner in police custody in Port Vila.
The Stuff NZ website reports a member of the paramilitary Vanuatu Mobile police force made the death threat to Justice Nevin Dawson, who is serving a two year posting with Vanuatu's Supreme Court.
Justice Dawson was last year appointed coroner in an inquiry into the death of a prisoner being held by the Vanuatu Mobile Force.
He's recommended sweeping changes to Vanuatu's policing, and homicide investigations into the prisoner's death.
New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully has called the death threat, and the reports of police brutality disturbing.
He says they could have implications for the aid New Zealand gives to Vanuatu.
Call for probe
Transparency International Vanuatu has also called for an inquiry into the prisoner's death, and for the country's police chief to resign.
Justice Nevin Dawson's report was critical of Police Commissioner Joshua Bong, saying the former Vanuatu Mobile Force commander may have been obstructive to the inquiry.
Transparency International's Marie-Noelle Ferrieux-Patterson told Radio Australia's Tok Pisin service the commissioner should step down.
"You know in any country when you have such an incident - the death of a prisoner killed by four staff from the armed forces ... So it's time basically for the four armed force officers to be prosecuted. He needs to be suspended otherwise he will continue to be extraordinarily obstructive as the coroner found," she said.
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