The National Court in Port Moresby has granted a stay order in favour of former Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill temporarily preventing his arrest.
The orders were granted by Justice Nicholas Miviri at around 5pm this afternoon.
This comes after the Waigani District court issued a warrant of arrest for Mr. O’Neill yesterday over an ongoing investigative case for official corruption.
While no specific details have been released at this point in time due to the sensitivity of the investigations, Acting Commissioner for Police, David Manning confirms that police investigators had applied to the district courts for arrest warrant which was granted last Friday.
Earlier today in Parliament, Mr. O’Neill said the move to have him arrested was politically motivated and a breach of the Police Act.
“thank you for giving me this opportunity to ask a few questions to our good prime minister, Prime Minister this is about the policy guiding the operation aspect of the constabulary and as you are aware on today’s from page, I am certain that the warrants issued to arrest me for performing the duties that I was tasked to do and this complaint came from your minister for police in 2014 as he has alluded to…”
Mr Kramer in response replied saying
“I appreciated the concerns raised by the former Prime Minister, this issue is a matter before the court, the court has issued a warrant and so it is not going to be appropriate for this forum or the former Prime Minister to start to raise the merits of his innocence or guilt in this matter.”
Mr O’Neill’s initial question however, falling back on police protocol and ministerial involvement.
“why is your Police Minister giving directions to the Commissioner of Police without proper evidence, direct evidence, accusing leaders and of course departmental heads in this respect, is it now a criminal offence?”
