Manus Island riots: PNG police report finds officers and locals not responsible for asylum seeker death

Updated

Papua New Guinea's deputy police commissioner has cleared PNG police and locals of responsibility for the death of an asylum seeker during last week's Manus Island unrest.

The Royal PNG Constabulary has released the preliminary report into the death of 23-year-old Iranian asylum seeker Reza Berati.

Mr Berati was killed during violence at the immigration detention centre late on February 17.

The PNG report has found Mr Berati died of multiple head injuries that were most likely caused by a heavy object.

Other details about his death are expected to be released later this week in a full report.

Deputy police commissioner Simon Kauba has told the ABC he has cleared PNG police and locals of responsibility for Mr Berati's death.

He says Immigration Minister Scott Morrison "came good" on Saturday night when he revealed Mr Berati had died inside the centre.

He added that PNG police knew that detail soon after the incident.

In initially announcing the news of last Monday's riot, Mr Morrison had said Mr Berati sustained the fatal head injury outside the centre.

But on Saturday he said new information suggests the incident, along with much of the riot, occurred inside the detention centre's perimeter.

Mr Berati arrived at Christmas Island with no family members on July 24 and was transferred to PNG one month later under the resettlement policy introduced by former prime minister Kevin Rudd.

The Greens and asylum seeker advocates have said that Mr Berati was "murdered" on the island.

More than 60 other people were injured in the violence, and Australia is also conducting an investigation.

Mr Morrison has warned the investigation, to be conducted by former Attorney-General's Department secretary Robert Cornall, will take "some time" to gather the facts about the "very serious incident".

Interactive: Australia’s offshore immigration centres Find out more about Australia’s operations on Christmas Island, Manus Island and Nauru.

Topics: refugees, immigration, government-and-politics, federal-government, papua-new-guinea, australia, asia, pacific

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