Australian police fly out of PNG

By Phil Mercer
BBC News, Sydney

Australian police came to help their PNG counterparts

Australia has been forced to pull police officers out of Papua New Guinea after judges there found their deployment was unconstitutional.

Around 200 officers and bureaucrats were sent to Papua New Guinea last year as part of a multi-million dollar plan to help restore law and order.

Their main task was to train their local counterparts.

But Papua New Guinea's Supreme Court decided that the visitors' immunity from prosecution violated local laws.

The deployment of Australian police officers to Papua New Guinea was part of an ambitious five-year plan to combat spiralling crime and corruption.

Six months after their assignment began, they are now heading home.

At the end of last week, the Supreme Court decided that parts of the Australian mission - in particular, its immunity from prosecution - was unlawful.

The government in Canberra had demanded these legal exemptions before it agreed to send in its police officers last year.

Attempts to revive the agreement will have to negotiate the very sensitive issue of immunity.

Regional force

The court ruling is a blow to Canberra's policy of greater intervention in the affairs of its smaller neighbours in the South Pacific.

The government here was worried that instability in the region could create havens for drug traffickers and extremists.

In 2003, Australia led a multinational peacekeeping force into the troubled Solomon Islands, which had suffered years of ethnic unrest.

Papua New Guinea, a former Australian colony that gained independence in 1975, is facing serious law and order problems.

The capital, Port Moresby, is considered to be one of the most dangerous cities anywhere.

The country of six million people also has the highest rates of HIV and Aids in the South Pacific.