Rain hampers search for tourist

Darwin - Rainfall yesterday set back efforts by police and Aborigine trackers to find a British tourist abducted and feared killed…

Darwin - Rainfall yesterday set back efforts by police and Aborigine trackers to find a British tourist abducted and feared killed by a gunman on a remote highway.

Mr Bob Fields, a regional commander with Northern Territory police, said checkpoints were maintained on the few roads that crisscross the vast, mostly uninhabited desert where Mr Peter Falconio and his attacker were being sought.

A helicopter was conducting an aerial search, he said.

Mr Fields said police received a strong public response to a computer-generated image of the gunman which figured prominently in news reports across the country, but nothing to provide a breakthrough.