23 Feb 2017

Samoa govt to re-organise top police management

2:28 pm on 23 February 2017

Samoa's Cabinet is to restructure the executive body at the Ministry of Police.

Samoa's Police Commissioner Fuiavailili Egon Keil.

Samoa's Police Commissioner Fuiavailili Egon Keil. Photo: RNZI/Autagavaia Tipi Autagavaia

It plans to reinstate the position of a deputy police commissioner and remove the current four assistant commissioner positions.

A leaked cabinet paper says the change will be effective once the current assistant commissioners' three year contracts are complete.

This comes after the court on Monday dismissed all 265 charges against the suspended Police Commissioner, Fuiavailili Egon Keil, who is yet to be reinstated.

Meanwhile the cabinet has also appointed a three member tribunal to investigate the suspension of three senior officers, including one of the assistant commissioners, Samoa Mulinuu.

The trio were the last senior officers to have been suspended by the cabinet after the Prime Minister, Tuila'epa Sa'ilele Malielegaoi, re-assumed the police portfolio, following the arrest of the police commissioner last year.

The members of the tribunal are a church minister, a former senior police woman who held the rank of inspector and a former Manu Samoa manager who is an insurer.