Queensland Premier calls for calm in Palm Island as activists promise payback

Peter Beattie

BRISBANE - Queensland Premier Peter Beattie has called for calm as indigenous leaders declared war on the state's police over a death in custody on Palm Island.

Mr Beattie tried to hose down threats by Aboriginal activist Murrandoo Yanner to "payback" police by promising to release a Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) report on the death.

"I just urge everyone to calm it down and let the CMC do its work," he told reporters.

Officers from the corruption watchdog have returned to the island off Townsville to continue their probe into the watchhouse death of 36-year-old Cameron Doomadgee.

Mr Doomadgee's death on November 19, and an autopsy report showing he had four broken ribs and a ruptured spleen and liver, sparked a riot on Friday by 300 islanders.

Rioters burnt down the police station and barracks and the courthouse.

Riot police had to be sent to the island to quell the uprising and arrest 18 men who are being held in custody in Townsville ahead of a bail hearing on Monday.

Mr Yanner, a cousin of Mr Doomadgee who intends to be at his funeral, has called for the charges to be dropped as an act of reconciliation.

He also said the police who found Mr Doomadgee dead should be charged with murder or face "payback".

"If we're not going to get it through white law, we will take it through our own means, through Aboriginal law which has payback," Mr Yanner told AAP.

"When someone's killed, someone must be killed in return.

"If this policeman isn't punished, jailed or charged with murder, under the law, if you can't get one policeman you get another.

"I can certainly guarantee in my neck of the woods, the lower Gulf of Carpentaria, we will up the ante on the police, we will have a lot more civil disobedience, we will do the Gandhi/Martin Luther thing, we'll just totally be non-cooperative with police to an amazing degree they have never encountered before.

"We'll have people turn a blind eye ... the police will have no assistance whatsoever in our communities, and if in fact they'll be lucky not to be assaulted and other things."

Mr Doomadgee's funeral arrangements have been delayed pending a second autopsy report sought by his family.

Brad Foster, a spokesman for the Palm Island community and chief executive of the Carpentaria Land Council, said: "They are actually putting off the funeral until they get an independent autopsy done.

"They just don't believe it was an accident. They think it was murder."

Mr Beattie, who had previously defended so-called "heavy-handed" police tactics in the riot as "appropriate", said today people on Palm Island should be given latitude.

"As long as they didn't break the law," he said.

Asked to respond to Mr Yanner's comments, he said: "Murrandoo went to Atherton High School (in far north Queensland) in another generation and there's a lot of hot heads that came out of there including me.

"They have a personal guarantee from me that we will release the results. If the CMC weren't looking at this they would have a point.

"If the CMC finds there is no action to be taken, that will be released."

- AAP