Sydney : Police in Australia on Tuesday charged and arrested a man for the murder of a gay student in Sydney in 1988.
Scott Price, 49, was arrested at his Sydney home on Tuesday. He was refused bail and will face a court on Wednesday, reports the BBC.
The body of Scott Johnson, the 27-year-old American victim, was found dead at the bottom of the North Head cliffs in Manly in 1988.
The police ruled it a suicide.
However, later inquiries concluded he had been killed in a hate crime.
The New South Wales (NSW) police force had previously apologised to the victim’s family for not investigating the case properly in the 1980s and failing to protect the gay community.
“While we have a long way to go in the legal process, it must be acknowledged that if it wasn’t for the determination of the Johnson family… We wouldn’t be where we are today,” the BBC quoted NSW Commissioner Mick Fuller said.
Scott, a University of Cambridge maths student, had moved from the US to Sydney to be with his partner in 1986.
He had been close to completing his PhD when he died.
His brother Steve campaigned for decades for the case to be re-investigated.
He told the BBC in 2018 it was “inconceivable” that his brother had jumped off a cliff.
“This is a very emotional day,” he said in a video message on Tuesday.
“He was my best friend and he really needed me to do this.”
