PNG national still at large in after escaping ABF custody in Cairns
The police helicopter has been deployed in a fresh hunt for a Papua New Guinean national who has been on the run from authorities for a month since escaping ABF custody.
Cairns
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The police helicopter has been deployed in a fresh hunt for a Papua New Guinean national on the run from authorities for a month since escaping ABF custody.
In early April heavily armed police first responded to reports of a man armed with a large knife in the Cairns suburbs of Kanimbla and Brinsmead.
The man was captured on home security cameras lurking in residents’ backyards.
At the time the man, avoided capture by taking off into mountainous bushland of Mooroobool Peak.
On Friday at about 8.30am the man returned to the streets of Brinsmead with his makeshift machete in hand.
According to police no one has been injured or threatened but there was a strong presence earlier this morning in an effort to take the man into custody.
The man entered Torres Strait waters as an illegal immigrant in January and was held in Queensland Police Service custody at Thursday Island.
The man was in need of medical assistance and was handed over to Australia Border Force officers who brought the man to Cairns where he was housed under guard at a city hotel.
The PNG man somehow managed to escape into the community and has been at large ever since.
In the past 12 months, 14 Papua New Guinean nationals have been medically evacuated to Cairns and Townsville for treatment by Queensland Health.
Once a PNG national has received medical treatment, Queensland Health arranges for their return to the Torres Strait.
Though this happens in the vast majority of cases, police efforts to arrest the man this morning is at least one instance of a PNG national avoiding repatriation by absconding from custody.
The incident has been an embarrassing slip-up for the ABF who have declined to state how many other medically evacuated patients have escaped federal custody.
There have been numerous reports of the man since absconding from federal custody however many have proven to be false sightings, police said.
Originally published as PNG national still at large in after escaping ABF custody in Cairns
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