Australian prosecutors have dropped an assault case alleging a member of the Papua New Guinea cabinet assaulted a woman.
Petroleum minister Jimmy Maladina, 58, was to face a hearing on Thursday over the contested allegation that he assaulted a 31-year-old woman known to him in an eastern Sydney home.
But prosecutors instead withdrew the single count of domestic violence-related assault occasioning bodily harm related to the 6 July incident.
Police charged the politician, who pleaded not guilty, after being called to the property in Bondi and finding two children present and a woman with facial injuries.
Maladina stood down from cabinet after charges were laid, only to be reinstated in October after the prime minister of Papua New Guinea reportedly received legal advice about the case.
After the case was dropped, Maladina was seen with his high-profile barrister, Margaret Cunneen, in Sydney’s Downing Centre local court.
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A restraining order application taken out on behalf of the woman was adjourned until Monday.