Sudan emergency: older people's voices
|
Second autopsy held in Australia island riot case
30 Nov 2004 08:50:27 GMT
Source: Reuters
|
SYDNEY, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Australian police appealed for calm on Tuesday before the funeral of an Aboriginal man whose death in custody on a remote island sparked a riot in which a police station and courthouse were torched. Queensland state officials ordered a second autopsy on the body of Cameron Doomadgee, a 36-year-old Aborigine who died in a police cell on Palm Island, off Australia's tropical northeast coast on Nov. 19. About 200 islanders rioted last Friday after an autopsy report showed Doomadgee, who had been arrested for being drunk, died from "an intra-abdominal haemorrhage caused by a ruptured liver and portal vein". He also had four broken ribs, according to the first autopsy report. The second autopsy was performed on Tuesday by a forensic pathologist brought in from Victoria state, a spokeswoman for Queensland state coroner Michael Barnes said. The results of the second autopsy have not yet been released. "Given the sensitivities around the man's death and that medical evidence will be crucial to establishing how the man died, it is important that I have a second opinion," Barnes said in a statement. Queensland state police commissioner Bob Atkinson said he hoped Doomadgee's funeral, likely to be held later this week, would be peaceful. "(We will) work with the (Palm Island) community and the family to ensure that the funeral is conducted in a respectful and safe way without incident," Atkinson told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. Police reinforcements were rushed to the island to quell last week's riot in which the police station was burned down along with a police residence and courthouse. Palm Island has a population of about 3,500 people. On Monday, 18 islanders appeared in the Townsville Magistrates Court on the Australian mainland on charges related to the riot. All but one were remanded in custody. Angry islanders waved placards outside the court on Monday, calling for police to stop killing Aborigines. Palm Island protester Errol Wyles said disadvantaged Aborigines faced institutional racism on the island. Queensland Premier Peter Beattie has also called for calm on the island and urged residents to await a police investigation into Doomadgee's death. Australia's 450,000 Aborigines are the nation's most disadvantaged group, with a life expectancy 20 years less than white Australians. They make up 20 percent of the jail population despite being only 2 percent of the national population.
|
|
|
