The manhunt for alleged High Country police killer Dezi Freeman is being complicated by the unknown number of potential hiding places dotting the landscape around Porepunkah, a legacy of the small alpine town’s mining history.

As police posted a $1 million reward on Saturday for the capture of the fugitive, who is believed to be heavily armed, a former friend of Freeman’s said that nobody knew how many abandoned mine shafts, known as “adits”, had been left in the area after the 1850s gold rush.

Ray Kompe, who said he taught Freeman bushcraft decades ago, said on Friday that it was possible the fugitive was hiding down a mineshaft, presenting the hundreds of police officers hunting the self-styled “sovereign citizen” with a serious problem.

Detective Inspector Dean Thomas, announcing the

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