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Arrest of second suspect soon

From left, Deputy Police Commissioner Gabriel Manelusi, Police Commissioner Matthew Varley and NCID Director, Superintendant Ian Vaevaso after yesterday’s special press conference with the local media

AS the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force (RSIPF) had established the identity of the second suspect into the Easter double murder, the force is progressing towards an imminent arrest.

Police Commissioner, Matthew Varley said police are trying to use the same method used during Monday’s arrest as best as possible to try and pursue elders to hand in the second suspect.

“It’s not easy to negotiate for such and there is no timeframe, but we are working around the clock to make sure that this negotiation produces result.

“We expect that as soon as possible this suspect will come forward and surrender himself,” he told journalists when asked yesterday.

“We haven’t released the second suspect’s name now, obviously for reasons of our investigation and due to the sensitive nature of this ongoing negotiation.

“This is not the case that we don’t know who the suspect is, we know who the person is and we are working very hard to secure his surrender, and we are working very hard on that.

Deputy Commissioner Gabriel Manelusi hinted that the two suspects are hiding in different locations on Malaita Province.

He reinforces that police will use the same approach to call upon family members of the second suspect to come forward to the police.

“We are still working behind the scene on this case, we have information that we are still working on with the community to identify where the person is.”

The police are appealing to the community to keep working with them.

They said those negotiation are already underway and they are hoping it will produce a positive result.

“We are talking about this case to have the suspect surrender, and come forward peacefully is a much better result than having to send in the police to arrest him.

“We are always willing to work with the group and community leaders for a peaceful and successful resolution and we are prepared to allow that to take time.

“At this point of time, we are working very hard behind the scenes to have that successful result,” the Commissioner reiterates.

He also informed reporters yesterday that as police have identified two suspects from the CCTV footage, that doesn’t mean their investigation stops there.

“As part of any investigation into this case, we will look both before and after the event to see if there is others involved but these are our two prime suspects,” he said.