Vic: Call for crime commission to help with gangland murders

AAP General News (Australia)
12-16-2003
Vic: Call for crime commission to help with gangland murders

MELBOURNE, Dec 16 AAP - Victoria Police want the new Australian Crime Commission to
use its special powers to force suspects in Melbourne's 21 gangland murders to provide
information.

Operation Purana, the police task force investigating the gangland murders, has turned
to the crime commission because it has powers not bestowed on most police forces.

People who refuse to answer a question at a crime commission hearing can be jailed,
Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Simon Overland said.

The move comes as Melbourne's underworld war intensified on Saturday when Graham "Munster"

Kinniburgh was gunned down outside his fortified home in the affluent Melbourne suburb
of Kew.

Mr Overland has asked the crime commission to hold hearings because the city's criminal
underworld is refusing to provide key information to police.

"One of the difficulties we've got is that people are reluctant to talk to us," he
told ABC Radio.

"There are a number of people in particular who we would like to ask questions of,
and the crime commission with their coercive powers offers us the opportunity to place
those people in front of a hearing in a situation where they actually have to answer the
questions that are being asked of them."

Families of people who have been killed are also reluctant to talk to police, Mr Overland said.

AAP kh/gfr/cjh/jlw

KEYWORD: UNDERWORLD

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