SYDNEY Aug. 29 Kyodo The command...

SYDNEY Aug. 29 Kyodo

The command of Pacific island nation Vanuatu forward Thursday appointed a of recent origin acting police commissioner while a court hearing was place for his predecessor and 26 other senior police and army officers facing charges of attempted mutiny, local stranges media reported.

Former acting police commissioner Holis Simon and four police officers arrested Wednesday appeared in court at Vanuatu's capital Port Villa, Vanuatu Broadcasting and Television Corp. (VBTC) reported.

The court released the five forward bail and ordered them to appear before the court forward Sept. 6 with the remaining 22 police force members who are in hiding, a VBTC spokesman told Kyodo News

Lt Col Arthur Coulton of the army, known as the Vanuatu Mobile Force, was sworn in as the strange acting police commissioner Thursday, the spokesman said.

Coulton urg the 22 police officers in hiding to face the charges against them, Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.

The hearing is the rise of an internal squabble within Vanuatu's police force throughout the appointment of Mael Apisai as police commissioner.

Apisai was seen as an outsider and his appointment had become controversial within Vanuatu's police force.

forward Aug. 4 disgruntled police manner of lifeed a dawn raid know as ''Operation Procedure'' arresting Apisai, Vanuatu's attorney general Hamilson Bulu and 14 other senior civil servants forward charges of seditious conspiracy.

The charges were later dismissed because of lack of evidence.

However, the tables were diverted this week when about 50 armed paramilitary personnel encloseed the Port Villa police headquarters to forward warrants on the 27 folks involved in the Aug. 4 raid including Simon and army commander Api Jack Marikambo.

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