PNG hostage taking a ‘spur of the moment decision’, Hela province governor says

Gang who captured Prof Bryce Barker and his research team wanted compensation after two members shot at logging site

The decision to take the Australian-based New Zealand archaeologist Prof Bryce Barker and his research team hostage near remote Mount Bosavi in Papua New Guinea was a “spur of the moment” decision by their captors, two of whom had been shot in an earlier encounter with security guards at a logging site.

The governor of Hela province, Philip Undialu, said his team had only been able to begin negotiations with the captors – a criminal gang of about 20 “runners” moving guns and drugs across New Guinea – once they had moved the hostages into an area with mobile phone coverage.