11 Sep 2007

Solomons opposition wants answers about cost of Moti campaign

6:04 pm on 11 September 2007

The Solomon Islands opposition leader, Fred Fono, has asked the government who has paid for the team of legal advisors that drew up a list of questions put to the Australian legal authorities in relationship to the Solomons attorney general, Julian Moti.

A catalogue of 666 questions was prepared as Australia has been demanding the extradition of Mr Moti to answer sex charges relating to his time in Vanuatu ten years ago.

Mr Moti is an Australian citizen, whose passport was withdrawn in Papua New Guinea last year just days before he fled to Solomon Islands on a clandestine PNG military flight.

Mr Fono says if it is true that a team has prepared the questions, then the Treasury would have spent millions of dollars of public money on just one foreign individual.

He says the money could have been better spent on rural development.