Australia rejects cover-up over security guard rape allegations

LORENGAU – Police in Papua New Guinea have threatened to arrest all managers at the Manus Island detention centre if three Australian men accused of attempted rape are not flown back to PNG to face an inquiry.

The three men were reportedly found naked, intoxicated and sniffing an unidentified substance with a Papua New Guinean woman in mid-July.

Provincial police commander Alex N’Drasal said the woman involved was interviewed on Wednesday and alleged the men drugged her and tried to rape her.

The woman reportedly told police she was given pills and sexually assaulted.

Police say they are investigating reports of “attempted rape, indecent exposure and sexual assault”.

Commander N’Drasal has demanded Australia’s Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) arrange the return of the three expatriates by close of business Thursday.

“If they are not here, we will proceed on to arrest all those managers who facilitated the deportation of those three Australians, because their actions prevented the course of justice,” he told the ABC.

The woman involved is understood to also work at the Australian-funded detention centre and PNG police said she could identify the men sent home.

Australia’s Department of Immigration and Border Protection has rejected claims it was involved in a cover up of an alleged rape on Manus Island.

The department said in a statement that it had known about the incident for two weeks and said the men in question were employees of the centre’s security provider Wilson Security.

“The Department of Immigration and Border Protection categorically rejects assertions made over recent days that it was involved in a ‘cover up’ of an alleged sexual assault on Manus Island,” the statement said.

“To clarify the matter, the Department was made aware immediately in mid-July of an incident involving three service provider staff and a locally engaged staff member.

“There were no allegations of a criminal nature made as a result of this incident. However, the alleged incident was inconsistent with expected behaviours and contrary to the service provider’s code of conduct.

“The three service provider staff were stood down and returned to Australia as part of standard procedures with the full knowledge and concurrence of the PNG police.”

But PNG police insist they did not agree to send the men home and remain furious at the actions of Australian officials.

“They are concealing a lot of information from us and that’s a total lie,” Commander N’Drasal said.

PNG’s prime minister Peter O’Neill has called for an investigation into the matter.

“After I receive the report from our officials, I will take this matter up with the Australian government and we will come to the bottom of this,” O’Neill told local television station EMTV.

“I agree with the Commissioner, he is in charge of this, he must investigate who sent this particular person out of the country without him facing the law.”

A spokesperson for the Australian Lawyers Alliance, Greg Barns, said the allegations against the Australian government are serious.

Barns said it is clear that despite what the Australian government says, it has control over the centre.

He said that if Australian government officials were involved in removing the guards from a potential criminal investigation then they may be criminally liable for obstructing an investigation.

In unrelated imcidents, a Papua New Guinean security guard who worked at the detention camp on Manus Island was allegedly murdered last Friday night. Another local guard had his hand severed.

The violence has prompted the Australian Greens to say Manus is in meltdown.

The Manus Province police commander, Alex N’Drasal, says the dead man, who had been drinking home brew, was attacked by locals in a settlement near the camp.

He says another man, who had also been drinking, had his hand cut off in the town on Saturday.

The Australian Greens Senator, Sarah Hanson-Young, says the Australian Government needs to explain what it is doing to make sure staff and refugees are safe.

On Tuesday, former prime minister and one of the founding leaders of independent PNG, Sir Michael Somare, said PNG should not have agreed to host the Australian-run immigration detention centre on Manus Island. - PNC sources