GOLD COAST BULLETIN

Thursday October 26, 2006

WANTED Australian conman Peter Foster was in an intensive care unit in hospital after being injured as he was arrested by members of Fiji’s elite police response team. His mother Louise said that she believed her son had been beaten by police after he was handcuffed and placed in the back of an open utility.

‘‘He was on the beach when they arrested him,’’ said his distraught mother from her home in Denarau, near Nadi. ‘‘They put him in the van and that’s when they all jumped on him.’’

However, police claimed Foster was struck by the propeller of a boat while trying to evade arrest at Deuba, near Suva, by jumping into a river.

Foster, unshaven, wearing a crucifix around his neck and dressed only in a pair of briefs, had a visible cut about 6cm long to the upper right side of his fore head. Police took him to Navua hospital where the wound was stitched and dressed then he was driven, lying in the back of the open utility, the 40km to the capital, Suva. He was admitted to the intensive care unit of the Colonial War Memorial Hospital.

Television footage showed an apparently unconscious Foster being lifted by police into the open-backed police vehicle for the trip to Suva from Navua.

Later footage showed him being wheeled into the accident and emergency entrance to the CWM Hospital, apparently still unconscious. Witnesses said Foster was conscious but would close his eyes and lie limp when the camera was on him. They did not see him speak to police.