18 Feb 2003

Solomon Islands police to send more officers to Auki over murder

5:59 pm on 18 February 2003

Solomon Islands police are sending more CID officers to Auki to bolster the investigation into last week's assassination of Sir Frederick Soaki.

Deputy police commissioner, John Homelo, says eight police are already in Auki working on the case, and a further two CID officers are likely to be sent today.

Mr Homelo says contrary to rumour, they don't have any suspects yet, and they're still trying to ascertain the motive for the murder.

"That's what we try to establish, because Sir Frederick was not under the UNDP programme....nor with the Police anymore....he was the councillor for the monitoring council, and we just try to get the motive, why it's Fred."

Sir Frederick was in Auki to participate in one of a series of workshops aimed at decommissioning 800 special constables, when a gunman burst into a restaurant and shot him.