CANBERRA, May 1 (Xinhua) -- A police vehicle was set on fire, and tear gas was deployed as a riot broke out in Australia's Northern Territory (NT) on Thursday night following the arrest of a man accused of murdering a five-year-old Aboriginal girl.
The body of the girl was found by police on Thursday, following a major search after she went missing from a home in an Aboriginal community on the outskirts of the Outback city of Alice Springs on Saturday.
In an update on Thursday night, NT Police said that 47-year-old Aboriginal man Jefferson Lewis, who had been named as a suspect in the girl's disappearance, had been arrested over an alleged murder.
Lewis, who was found unconscious by police after being assaulted by members of the public, was taken to Alice Springs Hospital where a group of around 400 people gathered and demanded "payback."
Payback is a traditional Aboriginal practice where elders or victims impose physical, and sometimes capital, punishment against a community member who has broken the law.
A police vehicle was set alight, ambulances were damaged and projectiles were thrown at police officers, whom rioters accused of protecting Lewis.
NT Police Commissioner Martin Dole told Australian Broadcasting Corporation television on Friday morning that officers used tear gas and fired rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.
He said that Lewis was evacuated from the hospital and airlifted to the NT capital of Darwin in the early hours of Friday due to safety concerns.
Police said that charges were expected to be laid against Lewis on Friday or Saturday. ■
