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Hargeisa (SL Times) – Scotland Yard detectives are expected to arrive in Somaliland in a couple of weeks time in order to help the Somaliland police investigate last month’s murders in which Italian doctor Annalena Tonelli and the SOS Sheikh Secondary School headmaster Richard Eyeington and his wife Enid were killed.
The UK detectives will also train the Somaliland police.
“Scotland Yard agreed to support the government in its own investigations and provide some training and support to the police service,” British Ambassador to Ethiopia, Myles Wickstead, said on Tuesday.
“We have asked Scotland Yard to participate in the investigation at the request of the Somaliland government and there is a team working on this issue in London now,” Wickstead said.
The Ambassador arrived in Hargeisa from Addis Ababa on Monday at the head of a delegation of British diplomats to take part in a War Remembrance Day in Somaliland’s capital, Hargeisa. The function was observed on Tuesday at Hargeisa war cemetery in which are buried British and Commonwealth soldiers who were killed during the first and second world wars and other conflicts in between. Hundreds of Somalilanders fought alongside British troops in world war II, particularly, in the Burma campaign.
Annalena Tonelli who founded and worked in the Borama TB hospital was killed at her hospital’s compound on Oct 5, 2003. Four persons suspected of involvement in her killing are now in police custody. The killing of Richard and Enid Eyeington took place on Oct 20, 2003 at Sheikh Secondary School in Sheikh. About 15 people are being held by police in connection with the killing.
“Somaliland has gained its reputation as being a peaceful and stable society and it is important to get to the bottom of these cases, to see if the two killings were related and if so who was behind them,” Mr. Wickstead said. The Ambassador stressed the importance attached to resolving the two murders. “Because if we don’t, there is a risk that Somaliland will lose that reputation for peace and stability which you have built up so carefully, and that is why it is very important to give your authorities all the support that they can have from Scotland Yard or elsewhere,” the British diplomat told reporters during a press conference held Tuesday evening at Maansoor Hotel.
Mr. Wickstead also emphasized the need to refrain from speculations as to who was behind the two crimes. “There has been a huge amount of speculation and my advice to everybody I talked to was to dump down that speculation because it only serves to increase the uncertainty and vulnerability that people fear.”
Mr. Wickstead said his advice was to wait until there is hard evidence on what happened. “What we hope is that once it has been cleared up what happened and who did it, then Somaliland’s reputation as a place for peace and stability will be reinforced.”
“A properly conducted transparent investigation is a very important part of that process,” he said.
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