Papua New Guinea hostage taking a ‘spur of the moment decision’

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.