24 Mar 2006

Fiji's police head calls on disgruntled officers to leave

10:27 am on 24 March 2006

Fiji's police commissioner has called on disgruntled officers trying to sabotage the reform and modernisation process in the force to leave.

Fiji TV quotes Andrew Hughes as saying there are some individuals in the force who don't agree with the direction in which he is leading the force while others are coming along as excess baggage.

He says another group is actually trying to frustrate and compromise the reform process.

Mr Hughes says one of their strategies is to make cowardly, anonymous allegations through the media against some very good professional senior officers to destroy their credibility

He has cited two recent examples in the Fiji media, one of which included allegations that a senior officer had pulled a gun on some junior policemen.

He says there is no truth to these allegations.

Mr Hughes says he has a fair idea of who these disgruntled officers are but will not go on a witch-hunt to get rid of them.