BREAKING: MELBOURNE forward Liam Jurrah has been charged with multiple offences following an alleged machete attack near Alice Springs.
"Following a thorough investigation, police have now charged two 23-year-old men with one count each of 'intend serious harm', 'cause serious harm' and being 'armed with an offensive weapon'," superintendent Michael White said in a statement.
Jurrah was interviewed by police late Thursday following a after of unrest in Alice Springs.
A club official and close friend of the 23-year-old are planning to travel to Central Australia Friday morning.
"I'm flying up with someone from the Melbourne Football Club … the expectation is he'll be flying home [Friday]," Bruce Hearn Mackinnon told AFL.com.au on Thursday night.
"He's got a lawyer and he's being interviewed [Thursday night]."
Hearn Mackinnon is a Deakin University lecturer who wrote Jurrah's biography. He is also one of the enigmatic forward's closest friends.
"Me and my family are kind of like his Melbourne family, so we're quite emotional about it," Hearn Mackinnon said.
"I don't know the details of the actual incident."
However, he said the incident seemed to be linked to "a long-running inter-family dispute" that had been going for 18 months.
"Two sides of Liam's family have been caught up in that," he said.
"Liam's family is engaged in warfare while he's trying to juggle a football career."
Jurrah was given personal leave from the football club on Monday to deal with - what the club said - were family and community issues at home.
Alice Springs mayor Damien Ryan said there was some "anti-social behaviour in Alice Springs last night".
He told AFL.com.au that the unrest seemed to be related to a trial of a man, who was recently convicted of a murder.
He said that trial was "still causing grief for a lot of families".
Jurrah, who is recovering from off-season wrist surgery, is an elder of the Warlpiri people, who are based about 300km north-west of Alice Springs in the small indigenous community of Yuendumu.
Melbourne confirmed Jurrah's arrest in a statement on its website.
"The Melbourne Football Club has been advised that Liam Jurrah, who is currently on personal leave to deal with family and community issues in Central Australia, is being held by police following an incident overnight," the statement read.
Earlier on Thursday, Northern Territory police confirmed that they had attended a disturbance at Little Sisters Town Camp - on the outskirts of Alice Springs - the previous night.
"On arrival police found a 35-year-old man with serious head injuries alleged to have been inflicted by a machete," a police spokesperson said.
A link to another assault which happened around the same time has been ruled out by police.
Matt Thompson is a reporter for AFL Media. You can follow him on twitter @MattThompsonAFL
