Two people arrested as part of Dezi Freeman investigation

Two associates of Dezi Freeman have been arrested as part of the investigation into how the police killer managed to evade capture for months.

Five days after Freeman was shot dead by heavily armed officers, a man and a woman were arrested at separate properties in north-east Victoria about 7am on Saturday.

Police confirmed the pair were not family members of Freeman, with a spokeswoman instead describing them as his associates.

“They will now be interviewed by police,” the spokeswoman said in a statement.

“The investigation remains ongoing and, as such, we are not in a position to provide further details at this immediate time.”

Police would not confirm where in the state’s north-east the pair were arrested.

Freeman had been on the run since August 19 last year, when he killed Neal Thompson and Vadim de Waart-Hottart when they arrived at a Porepunkah property in a group of 10 officers to carry out a search warrant in relation to child sexual abuse allegations against him.

In February, police said they strongly believed Freeman was dead.

But it emerged on Monday that Freeman had been hiding out in a shipping container on a remote bush property in Thologolong, near the border town of Walwa.

After an hours-long stand-off, Special Operations Group members shot dead the 56-year-old, having repeatedly called for him to surrender.

No officers were injured, despite Freeman firing the semi-automatic pistol he had stolen from one of the police he murdered.

The shootout brought to an end Australia’s longest and most expensive manhunt.

Four police sources, not authorised to speak publicly about the case, told The Age that the force was led to the property by a tip-off from someone close to the country’s most wanted man.

Two burner phones were found at the scene – more than 150 kilometres away from Porepunkah – which police spent the week examining to try and establish who was assisting Freeman.

The Age reported earlier this week that the task of building a case against anyone who had helped Freeman evade capture would face “serious obstacles”, according to officers familiar with the use of mobile phone data as evidence.

One police source, who was not authorised to speak on behalf of the force, described any proof of conversations between Freeman and his associates as “handy intelligence, but not great evidence”.

Speaking on Monday, after Freeman was killed, Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush repeatedly said he must have had help while on the run for 216 days.

“[It is] very important for us to understand how long he’s been here and who else was complicit in getting him here, and then caring for him or providing him with food and other things to this point,” Bush said.

“We will be speaking to anyone we suspect has assisted him to avoid detection and arrest.”

Anyone convicted of harbouring or assisting Freeman faces a custodial sentence of up to 20 years.

Last month, Victoria Police conceded it could not proceed with charges against Freeman’s wife Mali Freeman and a 56-year-old man from Porepunkah over obstructing their investigation.

The Office of Public Prosecutions reviewed a brief of evidence against the pair and found it was insufficient to support a conviction, which is understood to have rankled several investigators involved in the case.

The briefs against Mali Freeman and the Porepunkah man were independently reviewed by a barrister, who also determined a prosecution was unlikely.

Mali Freeman was arrested and interviewed by police last August before being released. She subsequently released a statement via her lawyer in which she urged her husband to surrender and for anyone helping him to come forward.

Police finished examining Freeman’s Thologolong hideout on Wednesday night, with photos taken by The Age on Thursday detailing his temporary camp around a shipping container with apparently newly fitted spinning air ducts to make it habitable in the summer heat.

Officers found camp chairs, an open box of beer, gas bottles and cooking appliances.

The property is owned by Richard Sutherland, 75, who has been in Tasmania for months and has not yet returned. He was unaware Freeman was staying on his land, with his brother and neighbour Neil Sutherland saying he was shocked to learn it was his hideout.

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