Transcript
AUTAGAVAIA TIPI AUTAGAVAIA: There was a police inquiry launched into a query from the customs office, relating to unlawful firearms that were referred to the police during their firearms amnesty programme last year. Those unlawful weapons were transferred to the police to be confiscated during that amnesty. However according to police sources, the commissioner was in the possession of two unlawful weapons and one of those unlawful weapons was from the customs office to be confiscated. And that was a separate inquiry from the other charges relating to the raid at Faleatiu village in August this year. Where one of the officers who was involved in the raid team was ordered by the police commissioner to 'shoot to kill' one of the suspects in that raid. The other charges also came from the day, which was last Monday, when the police commissioner was arrested and charged.
DON WISEMAN: What did he allegedly do wrong that day?
ATA: Threatening words and insulting words.
DW: He had been suspended earlier in the year, that case though had been thrown out a week or so ago and the suspension lifted, then he was suspended again almost immediately. There is something very strange going here isn't there?
ATA: Well according to police sources the inquiry into these separate charges, which the commissioner is now facing, was underway when the commissioner of police was suspended for three months on the other charges that were withdrawn because of insufficient evidence. However the police at the time were unable to serve the charges and charge the police commissioner when he was suspended for the first time, because they were still doing investigations, looking for the suspect alleged to have been involved in that order by the police commissioner to shoot to kill. This suspect, which is now one of the police witnesses in this case, was found in American Samoa, and one of the officers was sent over there to take a statement from that witness. After taking that statement in American Samoa, the officer returned here on that weekend, before that first suspension was lifted and the Cabinet made that decision for the commissioner to be reinstated. By the time that officer, investigating officer, returned to Samoa, the commissioner was ready to go back to work.
DW: Now, Egon Keil, he had been a police officer in L.A before he had moved to Samoa, has he been applying some American police techniques here that's upset a few locals? What's happened?
ATA: Remember there was that police drug raid at Fugalei market last year in October where the alleged suspect of that drug raid filed a complaint to the Ombudsman Office complaining about how the police carried out that raid because that raid ended up with the suspect being released because it was the wrong person they arrested. The outcome of that Ombudsman Commission of Inquiry was raising a lot of concerns about how the police are handling firearms. In the Ombudsman Commission of Inquiry report, there were recommendations to file criminal charges against those police involved. The police commissioner, before he was suspended, was part of that raid team, drug raid team.
DW: Do these problems involving the police commissioner, two suspensions now in matter of months, does this indicate that there is some significant problem within the police?
ATA: Well, to be quite honest with you Don, a number of letters have been published in the local media here and there is a number of allegations against the commissioner published in those letters. Remember there was a petition signed by the very senior officers in the ministry of police, raising all these concerns about the police commissioner and the way he runs the ministry of police. Now the Cabinet, because in that petition they call on the Cabinet for a commission of inquiry, well after the arrest of the police commissioner last Monday, the Cabinet in their urgent meeting straight after that arrest and the police commissioner being charged, they called for a commissioner of inquiry for what is happening inside the ministry of police. We will have to wait when that commission of inquiry is going to come out because that should tell us about what is really happening within the ministry of police.
