By Alberto Dabo BISSAU, Jan 11 (Reuters) - A former Guinea-Bissau prime minister who accused the country's president of ordering the murder of an ex-navy chief has sought U.N. protection after police tried to detain him, a U.N. spokesman said on Thursday. Carlos Gomes Junior, who was dismissed as prime minister by President Joao Bernardo Vieira in 2005, sought refuge in the U.N. building in Bissau on Wednesday after evading police officers. The Interior Ministry had issued an order for the detention of Gomes Junior, leader of the formerly ruling PAIGC party, after he accused Vieira of being behind the recent killing of former navy chief of staff Mohamed Lamine Sanha. "He (Carlos Gomes Junior) is still here ... he sought the United Nations for safety reasons," said a spokesman for the U.N. Peace-Building Support Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNOGBIS). He added U.N. officials were consulting with the government to find an "amicable solution" to the case. The murder of former navy chief Lamine Sanha, who died of his wounds after he was shot by unidentified gunmen last week, triggered violent protests in Bissau at the weekend in which one demonstrator was killed when police opened fire. The incident has raised tensions in the small West African country, which has been rocked by a series of coups and uprisings since independence from Portugal in 1974. This incessant instability has kept it one of the poorest nations in the world. Lamine Sanha was close to late army leader Ansumane Mane, who overthrew Vieira after a 1998-99 civil war. Vieira, who first seized power in a 1980 coup, won back the presidency in elections in 2005. Gomes Junior refused to accept Vieira's election victory, prompting his dismissal as head of government. Justice Minister Namuano Dias Gomes said the authorities wanted to question the former premier about his public allegations, made to the media, that Vieira was involved in the murder of Lamine Sanha. "He should appear before the investigation into the murder, to provide proof of what he said," the minister said. He said Gomes Junior was not in danger but the former premier's PAIGC party appealed to the United Nations and the international community to seek guarantees that his rights would be respected. The murdered ex-navy chief, Lamine Sanha, was briefly detained last August, accused of plotting a coup. Diplomats and political commentators say the only way to end the country's chronic instability is to reshape the military, although some doubt whether the army's top brass is ready to disengage from national politics. (Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher)
