Pacific

Tahiti opposition wants murder case probe widened

17:56 pm on 28 June 2013

French Polynesia's opposition wants an investigation into an old murder case widened, following the laying of charges against

two members of the disbanded GIP militia.

They were charged this week with kidnapping and murdering a journalist, Jean-Pascal Couraud, in 1997 after a nearly nine year-long investigation, which the opposition says had been badly run and possibly even sabotaged.

It says the revived probe should also focus on the now jailed GIP head, Leonard Puputauki, who it says ran the organisation with an iron fist.

The two men's defence lawyer has called for the case to be dropped, saying if his clients had been involved in what they are accused of, they would have been taken straight to prison.