The Australian-Samoan whom the Government is seeking to extradite to Samoa over his alleged involvement in a plot to kill the caretaker Prime Minister has lodged a counter-case against the Australian Federal Police.

Talalelei Pauga was arrested in August last year on the request of the Samoan Government, for allegedly being involved in a plot to kill now-caretaker Prime Minister Tuilaepa Dr. Sailele Malielegaoi. In December 2020, he laid a formal complaint with the A.F.P. alleging the processing of his arrest was conducted poorly.

Through his lawyers George Mancini and Greg Finlayson he says he followed up on his complaint months later only to find out the case had been closed with no resolution or any advice given to the complainant.

Pauga wants that complaint investigated properly and is seeking to have the Federal Court have the A.F.P. staff member handling the case replaced with a new officer.

Counsel told the Samoa Observer on Wednesday that Pauga is seeking to hold A.F.P. accountable to its own processes and to hold the police officers accountable to the A.F.P. disciplinary processes.

“It’s a question of what is the accountability with the police in terms of their obligations to an arrested person, and the transparency by which a complaint is investigated,” Mr. Mancini said.

“The advantage [Pauga] gets is a hopefully proper investigation of his complaint. This is purely contained to the accountability of the police and their disciplinary processes.”

The case is being heard in the Federal Court of Australia by Justice Anthony Besanko, between Pauga and the A.F.P. Commissioner Reece Kershaw and his delegate involved in the case.

In its first procedural hearing on Wednesday, the Government of Samoa applied to be included in the case, for reasons not yet clear to Pauga’s counsel.

The case will resume on Thursday 20 May to hear Samoa’s application to intervene.

Counsel for Samoa from the Australian Attorney General’s office has previously told this newspaper that as a matter of practice, the department does not share submissions filed in proceedings with non-parties, and would not comment further while matters are ongoing.

Pauga is currently in the middle of extradition proceedings, and a case against his ongoing detention while he awaits the outcome of that process.

He has alleged that his detention is unlawful and that he should be allowed to wait freely at home as the extradition hearings proceed.

But his lawyers say this new case against A.F.P. will not have any bearing on either of those cases.

“It’s not uncommon when someone is being processed by the police for whatever it is they are being processed for like being arrested that they raise a complaint about how they were processed and whether that was done properly,” Mr. Mancini said.”

Pauga’s next hearing over his extradition will be in July, with parties given until Thursday 10 June to file their submissions and responses ahead of the two-day hearing before Magistrate Tina Previtera.

Meanwhile, he remains in detention at Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre in Queensland, to which he was remanded soon after his arrest in August 2020.