NOUMEA, New Caledonia, June 22 — A leader of the independence movement in French Pacific territory New Caledonia was charged today after being arrested earlier this week, AFP journalists saw, following weeks of deadly riots last month.

Authorities did not immediately say what crimes Christian Tein, head of the CCAT pro-independence group, was charged with at his interview with an investigating magistrate in the courthouse in New Caledonia’s capital Noumea.

His half-hour hearing at the judges’ office was the first among a group of 11 arrested Wednesday over the violence, in which nine people including two police officers died.

Hundreds more were wounded, and around 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) of damage was inflicted during the riots.

The remainder of the group were set to be charged later Saturday, including arrested CCAT communications chief Brenda Wanabo.

"My client never imagined she would find herself here. She’s extremely shocked, in her eyes she’s just an activist,” Thomas Gruet, a lawyer for Wanabo, told AFP at the courthouse.

Riots, street barricades and looting broke out in New Caledonia in mid-May over an electoral reform plan that indigenous Kanak people feared would leave them in a permanent minority, putting independence hopes definitively out of reach.

France’s government repeatedly accused Tein’s CCAT of orchestrating the violence, to which it responded by sending over 3,000 troops and police to the territory almost 17,000 kilometres from Paris.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin called it a "mafia-style organisation”, although CCAT has always denied being behind the riots.

Noumea chief prosecutor Yves Dupas said his investigation covered crimes including armed robbery and complicity in murder or attempted murder, without specifying who could be charged with which crime.

Tein himself had contacted police to give himself up "so as to explain his view of the allegations,” Dupas said.

Not all of the other detainees have been identified. — AFP