The National – Thursday, June 16, 2011
PORT Moresby detectives were last evening questioning the adopted son of Acting Prime Minister Sam Abal at Boroko police station over the murder of an unidentified woman at the Abal residence grounds.
Police Commissioner Tony Wagambie said detectives, acting on intelligence information, picked up Theo Abal yesterday morning at the Ponderosa Hotel in Port Moresby.
Police have named him as the prime suspect after he went into hiding following the discovery of the body.
While overseas media, including Radio Australia, were telling their audiences last night that Theo Abal was charged with wilful murder, Wagambie said he had not been informed.
He was also unable to confirm reports that the victim’s throat had been slit and that the murder weapon – a knife – had been recovered by police.
The dead woman’s identity also remained unknown.
Her body is at the Port Moresby General Hospital morgue and police called on relatives of missing women to come forward to identify her.
The arrest, and subsequent actions by police, related to the discovery of a woman’s body on Monday morning inside the Abal residence grounds in Konedobu. On the night, guards at the residence told police they had seen a man walk in hand-in-hand with a woman through the gate.
Later, they said they heard a woman scream.
Following the discovery of the body, the acting prime minister called the police commissioner and reported that there was a body inside his yard.
He told the commissioner, and later parliament, that he and his family would assist police in their investigations and anybody found responsible would face the full brunt of the law.
The opposition yesterday called on the acting prime minister to step down while investigations into the case was under way.