By Chris Taylor
05jan03
AUSTRALIANS in Papua New Guinea have been warned to take extreme precautions against marauding raskol gangs after the murders of two Australian citizens in the past three months.
Former Brisbane man Peter Wood was bashed to death in his home in Lae, PNG's second largest city, early on Friday.
The attack is believed to have been a robbery gone wrong involving the notorious raskols ("rascals"), young jobless men who mainly target Westerners.
Mr Wood, 65, died from massive head injuries after the raskols entered his home in a supposedly secure compound, managing to avoid security patrols and scale a security fence about 4.30am.
Late last year another expatriate, supermarket branch manager Dennis McLean, 50, was stabbed to death in the grounds of his home in the same city, 200km north of the capital Port Moresby.
A police criminal investigation department spokesman in Lae said police were interrogating a man who was being treated as a suspect in Mr Wood's murder.
The spokesman said that despite earlier reports that up to six raskols had been involved in the killing, police were seeking only one other person for questioning.
Australian consulate offices in Lae and Port Moresby were closed yesterday but the Foreign Affairs Department in Canberra issued strong bulletins warning Australians to maintain high levels of security in PNG.
The bulletins urged Australians to be aware that the rates of car thefts, assaults and bag snatches were extremely high.
They warned that criminal activity directed at expatriates in Lae was increasing and "visitors should avoid isolated areas and not walk alone, especially at night".
The department also warned tourists to maintain extreme vigilance after a string of car-jackings – thought to involve raskol gangs – in the Lae area in the past few months.
The car-jackings were concentrated on an area between Lae and the city's Nadzab Airport and also involved gangs staging armed robberies.
Mr Wood's family in Brisbane, including his two adult daughters, has been informed of his death by Foreign Affairs officials.
Police in Lae said Mr Wood, a mining executive who had lived in PNG for the past 11 years, was found by security patrols, stripped naked in his home.
They said they expected to charge a man in the next few days.
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