Slain envoy's last report on law and order

By MATHEW DEARNALEY and FRANCESCA MOLD

Diplomat Bridget Nichols had just completed a report on the breakdown of law and order in the Solomon Islands before she was stabbed to death.

The 50-year-old Deputy High Commissioner's early days on the job also involved taking calls from the family of New Zealand construction supervisor Kevin O'Brien, who was murdered in Honiara five weeks ago.

In her few weeks in the Solomons, Ms Nichols had prepared the report for the New Zealand Government on the collapse of law and order despite the end of a three-year civil war.

It is understood Ms Nichols' recommended sending some police, but in an advisory capacity only.

The Prime Minister's office is not commenting until the report reaches the Cabinet table.

But Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff voiced frustration yesterday at the lack of will or ability of the Solomon Islands police to battle criminals armed with high-powered weapons.

He noted that the police knew the identity and whereabouts of Mr O'Brien's suspected killer but had yet to make an arrest.

A military Boeing 727 carrying Ms Nichols' body arrived at Whenuapai around 10.45pm yesterday.

It was met by Mr Goff,

Ministry of Foreign Affairs chief executive Neil Walter and six of her friends.

An honour guard of six Air Force personnel carried the coffin to a waiting hearse.

An autopsy will be conducted in Auckland this morning, and Ms Nichols' funeral will be held in Wellington, where she completed a Master of Laws degree and practised as a barrister before becoming a diplomat.

The timing of her funeral has yet to be determined, because her family lives in Britain and it will depend on how long it takes her sister to fly here. Her elderly father and stepmother are too frail to travel.

Last night, Solomon Islands police were still questioning a security guard who was supposed to have been protecting the Deputy High Commissioner's fenced flat at Panatina Ridge, where she was stabbed in the chest on Sunday afternoon.

But Superintendent Charles Lemoa said it would be going too far to call the man a suspect.

Three other people held for questioning had been released.

Prime Minister Helen Clark yesterday questioned how the killing could have happened while a security guard was at the scene.

"What is beyond belief is that when you're paying for 24-hour security, the Deputy High Commissioner ends up being stabbed to death," she said.

Mr Goff said there was no evidence that the murder was anything other than an opportunistic crime.

"There's no suggestion that Bridget was targeted by virtue of being a foreigner or that she was targeted as a representative of the New Zealand High Commission," he said.

But he also disclosed that neither her wallet nor anything from a box of personal possessions she was either unloading or putting into a car had been taken when she was attacked in her garage or on the driveway in front.

"The most likely scenario is that she may have disturbed people or a person who was committing a burglary in the garage, but that at the moment is speculative."

Mr Goff confirmed that a serrated kitchen knife used to stab Ms Nichols had been found, and forensic evidence would be collected from it.

Two senior New Zealand police officers flew to Honiara yesterday with MFAT deputy secretary Gordon Shroff and Foreign Affairs security head Kathy Moriarty to help with forensic tests.

Newly elected Solomon Islands Prime Minister Sir Allan Kemakeza vowed last night to "leave no stone unturned" in the hunt for a killer.

Ms Nichols was no stranger to danger. She went to Honiara in January to become Deputy High Commissioner almost immediately after returning from two years at the New Zealand Embassy in Turkey.

She made frequent crossings between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories on embassy business, and worked in Solomon Islands for three years until 1991 for Volunteer Service Abroad.

But she had expressed apprehension to friends about what she would find on her return to the Solomons after violence that killed 100 people and turned 20,000 people into refugees.

The Herald received an email from a British citizen in Honiara suggesting she could have been a victim of anti-expatriate sentiment fuelled by a Solomon Islands newspaper item about New Zealand wanting to send its police to help to enforce law and order.

New Zealand's High Commissioner in Honiara, Heather Riddell, said the Solomon Islands Government had only just received Ms Nichols' report and any suggestion of a link between it and her deputy's slaying was pure speculation.

Ms Nichols had arrived in Honiara "raring to go" and her death was a shock to everyone.

Ms Nichols, who was divorced and had no children, lived in one of two residential compounds surrounded by wire-mesh fences and with 24-hour security guards. Staff are now under additional police protection.

New Zealand's former Ambassador to Turkey, Ian Kennedy, said British-born Ms Nichols was physically slight but was gutsy and full of spirit, a prodigious worker who relished a challenge and had a great capacity for communicating with people.

Asked whether this may have made her over-confident when facing her attackers, he said she was also a sensible person "and I just think she was really out of luck".

Lower Hutt lawyer and family friend David Butler said Ms Nichols was a formidable and courageous person.

He said it was a mark of her public-spiritedness that she put a promising career as a senior lawyer in private practice on hold in 1989 to travel with Volunteer Service Abroad to the Solomon Islands.