Papua New Guinea's National Court has ruled that police can arrest the country's Prime Minister on a charge of official corruption.
The court has rejected an application to review a warrant for the arrest of Prime Minister Peter O'Neill obtained by anti-corruption police in 2014.
"The subject decision is not reviewable," Justice Colin Makhail said in a decision handed down yesterday.
"It is an abuse of process and must be dismissed."
Police sought to arrest Mr O'Neill in June 2014 over allegations he authorised the payment of around $30 million to a law firm for inflated or fabricated legal bills.
Mr O'Neill then launched a number of legal attempts to stop the warrant being executed.
He also sacked the police commissioner and disbanded the anti-corruption taskforce that recommended his arrest.
The new Police Commissioner Gari Baki last year closed the National Fraud and Anti-Corruption Directorate, the division of the police that is seeking to execute the warrant, until a court ordered it be reopened.
Mr Baki had applied to the National Court to set aside the arrest warrant and allow a team of hand-picked detectives to review the evidence instead.
But the court found the evidence and other elements of the warrant could be examined during the criminal process, and that Mr O'Neill would be given fair opportunity to challenge these things in court.
The head of the National Fraud and Anti-Corruption Directorate, Matthew Damaru, welcomed the judgement and said it cleared the way for the arrest of the Prime Minister.
"There is nothing stopping us from executing the arrest," he said.
"We will brief the Commissioner on the decision and we'll take it from there."
Mr O'Neill's office said the decision was a mistake and would be appealed.
"The decision will be the subject of appeal based on previous Supreme Court binding authority which the National Court erroneously did not follow," a spokesman said.
