Australian Deaths
In the early hours of 22 December 2004, Australian Protective Service Officer Adam Dunning was ambushed and killed while on a routine vehicle patrol with another officer in Honiara. Within 24 hours, a rifle company group from the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment was flown into the Solomon Islands.
In early January 2005, a joint operation between the Royal Solomon Islands Police (RSIP) and Participating Police Force (PPF) resulted in the arrest of James Tatau. Tatau was charged with Dunning's murder, the attempted murder of his colleague, and an earlier shooting incident on a Participating Police Force (PPF) vehicle, in which a bullet narrowly missed two PPF officers.
After the arrest, the military presence within RAMSI was again reduced. As of 2005, the five troop-contributing nations (Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Tonga) together provided approximately 40 personnel to support the PPF. There are currently around 200 troops stationed in Solomon Islands, who regularly conduct patrols in the capital, Honiara and throughout the provinces.
Solomon Islanders James Tatau and John Hen Ome were acquitted after standing trial for the killing of Adam Dunning in May 2007.
Jamie Clark died in 2005 after falling down a sinkhole while serving as a peacekeeper in the Solomon Islands.
Read more about this topic: Regional Assistance Mission To Solomon Islands
Famous quotes containing the words australian and/or deaths:
“The Australian mind, I can state with authority, is easily boggled.”
—Charles Osborne (b. 1927)
“As deaths have accumulated I have begun to think of life and death as a set of balance scales. When one is young, the scale is heavily tipped toward the living. With the first death, the first consciousness of death, the counter scale begins to fall. Death by death, the scales shift weight until what was unthinkable becomes merely a matter of gravity and the fall into death becomes an easy step.”
—Alison Hawthorne Deming (b. 1946)